


Blackbird

by SS_Shitstorm



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Pregnancy, Reader-Insert, Robot Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Size Difference, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Transformer Sparklings, Unplanned Pregnancy, Xeno, youfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:34:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4861439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SS_Shitstorm/pseuds/SS_Shitstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tell me, human-" Starscream purrs, so close the vibrations of his voice roar through you. “-Did you honestly want to know about cybertronian reproduction, or does this have something to do with these “needs” you so conveniently skimmed over?”</p><p>(Formerly known as "Maximum Efficiency")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this...exists. What the fuck have I done.
> 
> I have never written for this fandom before and I had to consult no less than five TF slang guides and two wikis to find the appropriate anatomical euphemisms and I'm pretty sure I fucked at least some of them up. If you see a mistake I'd love it if you could let me know.
> 
> Set in the Prime universe at some undefined point in time where nobody is dead and Arachnid and Shockwave are simultaneously coexisting on the Nemesis somehow. Implemented some concepts about size conversion/biology/reproduction from other TF series.
> 
> This is pretty sticky and explicit. You have been warned.
> 
> Enjoy.

“Not operating at ‘maximum efficiency?’”  
  
  
“Correct”  
  
  
“And I suppose you expect me to do something about it?”

  
  
  
“Correct.”

  
  
“Because you’re a completely incompetent _brute_ who can’t handle a human and expects me to fix all of his problems?”

  
“. . . “

  
  
“Exactly.” Starscream lets out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know why I expected anything else, really.”

  
  
You exhale nervously, eyes glued to the tissue samples you‘d placed in the interface, trying your best not to listen. You mentally calculate your odds of slipping away unnoticed to crawl under it. Probably not good. Probably as good as your chances of burning “SHOCKWAVE IS A DOUCHE” with an acetylene torch into the wall and not get caught a second time were

 

  
You risk a glance over your shoulder. There’s a small opening under the console you could probably squeeze into if you tried. Then you’d be safe. Safe to die like a rat in the wall, suffocate once you ventured past the airlock, or, god willing, actually escape to freeze in the cold vacuum of space, as Shockwave had so kindly explained to you during your first, and only genuine attempt at escape.

  
  
“Douche” was an understatement..  Somewhere between the giant, unnerving single eye and his tendency to refer to you in the third person, Shockwaves‘s charm had been lost on you. Just last week he’d informed you(in a voice that hadn’t you known better you’d describe as “giddy”)your DNA and body chemistry had been radically, permanently altered by the near-constant exposure to energon. Your aging process had been slowed down to a tenth of what it was and you were beginning to emit a primitive EMP field.

  
  
That was cool. You’re a scientist too, and you easily saw merit in recording the effects this recently discovered substance was having on your body. What _wasn’t_ cool was your new-found inability to consume organic food, and the faint, unearthly glow you were fairly certain your skin had developed.

  
“The human’s work output decreases by 35% when I am working in close proximity to it. It experiences a notable increase in errors after receiving instructions for a period of 1-½ hours.”

 

  
“Sounds to me like you’re scaring the poor thing.”  Starscream muses, clicking his talons together distractedly. “You could attempt to appear friendlier.”

 

“Fear of death is the most efficient motivator.”

  
  
“Usually. But if that were true you wouldn’t have called me here.”

 

  
  
Well, not so much “break down” as “Starscream examines the ceiling while Shockwave performed an open air data dump.” Somewhere between the endless statistics and the troubleshooting guide he’d written up for you (how lovely) the more slender of the two had lost his attention. He leans against the wall, legs crossed, lazily fanning his wings out, and you feel your heart beat a tiny bit faster. Something Shockwave would later inquire about, no doubt, once he was finished reciting 30 digit numbers to explain his findings, much to the irritated seeker’s vexation.

  
  
“In _cybertronian_ , please?”

  
  
“It could be working faster. But it isn’t.”

  
  
“Are you sure she’s not sick? Human bodies are dreadfully delicate.”

  
  
“The human’s vital readings are sufficient. There is no indication of disease or bodily harm.”

  
  
“Human this, human _that_.” Starscream interrupts lazily “Have you tried calling her by her name? Humans tend to react better when addressed how they’re accustomed to.”

  
  
“I was not informed of the human’s designation.”

  
  
“And you never bothered to tell him, ‘____’?”

  
  
For a moment you have trouble wrangling yourself out of a pleasantly explicit daydream, because you swore you’d actually heard him say your name. It takes a sharp prod by one of his claws to alert you to the fact he’s _actually said it_. He said it and he _touched_ you.

  
_“H-how do you even know that?!”_   you almost blurt out, but manage to disguise it with a well-timed coughing fit.  “Never came up.” you say “ Though I’m surprised you remember it.”

  
  
“The other fleshlings were screeching it when you were retrieved, how could I _not?"_   He says, rolling his optics. “Besides, you were more. . .tiresome than most of your race to track down. It took us months to find someone with specs like yours. I won’t soon forget it.”

  
  
“I suppose I should be flattered.” you reply sarcastically, expertly disguising the schoolgirlish excitement in your voice because _holy shit_ _he remembered you name._

  
  
The seeker hasn’t been the one to ultimately capture you, but he had ordered it. You were a geneticist, or at least, you were before your capture and the ensuing laboratory explosion that killed your colleagues. He explained that they had reason to believe they could utilize human genetic material to save their dying race, and required someone of your expertise to aide them. Your rage subsided far faster than you’ve liked. You weren’t their prisoner. You were their savior. Why, if you hadn’t been kidnapped you’d be downright _honored._

  
  
Your exhilaration quickly melted into a nervous breakdown, however, when you had been confined to Shockwave’s lab and had begun exhibiting symptoms of energon exposure(as you had so affectionately dubbed it) faster than the cyclops could catalog it.  Even more so, your mind was near bursting with questions about their biology, their DNA, their reproduction, and Shockwave answered none of them. At least Starscream bothered explaining himself from the get go. That was likely why you preferred him.

 

  
That and the two times he’d prevented Shockwave from cracking you open like a coconut. You chalked the first one up to a misunderstanding. He thought you were the human labrat he’d been requesting for stellar-cycles and had you strapped down to his vivisection table faster than you could call him a one eyed cunt.

  
  
The second time you’d earned it, after rearranging Shockwave’s holographic display to project a crudely pixelated phallus and spit into his single eye when he asked you about it. Starscream thought that was hilarious, and his low, rumbling laugh sent a delicious chill down your spine. He snatched you with his own servos out from under the other giant’s raised fist to prevent your untimely demise, and for five of the most precious minutes of your life you, got to ride on his shoulder. That was the catalyst.

  
  
The catalyst that pushed aside logic in favor of pure, unadulterated stockholm-symdrome _bullshit._ Your job before had been thankless, hours and hours of grueling late nights in the laboratory with little to no recognition while you lived in constant fear of your colleagues plagiarizing your thesis. Clearly fate had bigger plans for you, because this metallic Adonis had come to sweep you away from your mundane earthly existence because you were the only one smart, talented, and _awesome_   enough to be his queen. So you sat there, slack-jawed and wide eyed(and possibly drooling just the tiniest bit) while you basked so hard in the glory of your new existence that you hardly noticed a much larger, much taller, infinitely more terrifying giant come through the door, and, after a brief exchange regarding a recent defeat at the Autobots’s hands, deliver a blow to the other bot with all the force of a neutron star.

  
  
You watched, sobered as he crawled back to larger alien on his hands and knees and begged for forgiveness while he made grandiose promises that their recently acquired human slave would turn the tides in their favor. Reality was painfully clear now. Your “Adonis” was a liar and a _pussy_ and _wasn’t even their leader goddamnit._ And you were an _idiot_ rapidly developing a robot fetish.  
  
But pathetic as he was, and stupid as you were, you still caught yourself stealing glances during his rare visitations, still found yourself listening intently when you heard his voice over the intercom. He was tall, lean, catlike in his movements. Handsome, even. And on occasion when Shockwave wasn’t paying attention and you found some out-of-sight alcove to crawl into, you expertly repressed the self-loathing that pricked at the back of your neck so you could bite your lip and close your eyes and pretend a 30 ft. height difference wasn’t an issue.

  
  
_Yes_ ,  it was weird, and _no_   you didn’t have enough energy to psychoanalyze it. So you blow out a breath, lean back against the console, and slide into a seated position on the floor, allowing yourself to stare undetected as you’d done so many times before.  
  
This time, however, as your eyes trace invisible lines from his heels, up to his thighs, over his sleek chassis and slowly up to his face, it dawns on you that he isn’t looking disinterested at his rambling companion, or the wall, or lazily regarding his servos, but is staring straight back at you, the tiniest suggestion of a smirk on his face.  
  
_Oh. Shit._  
  
Your blood turns to ice. He holds your gaze for 10 of the longest, most _agonizing_ seconds of your life, before turning back to Shockwave, unintentionally giving you enough high-octane fantasy fuel to power you for a month. _Damn._  
  
_“That’s fine.”_   you convince yourself, staring a hole into the floor. _“So he smiled. He’s probably thinks it‘s funny.”_   Despite the diodes the larger mech had forcibly attached to measure your brain activity when you first arrived, you sincerely doubted either of them were able to translate the readings much father than “healthy“, “dying“ or “dead“. Your secret was safe, and would likely remain that way.  
  
“Alright, you‘ve made your point.”  The taller, lither mech concedes, finally taking the data pad the other had been brandishing in his face. “But in all of this pointless drivel you’ve still failed to inform me exactly _what_ it is you want me to do about it.”  
  
“I have noted cardiovascular and blood pressure spikes occur coinciding with your visitations.” “Shockwave drawls. “During your visitations there is a marked increase in adrenal activity. Approximately 8.5 minutes after your departure there is an endorphin surge. The period following the visitation is when peak efficiency occurs.”

  
  
_Or not._

  
“Is that so?” A raised eyebrow, a sidelong glance. You mentally bump your fuel supply to two months.

  
  
“Correct. I lack sufficient data regarding human hormone cycles to reach a conclusion, but there is enough to suggest that altering the duration and nature of your visits will improve the overall work performance. I’ve compiled a list of activities that may-”

  
  
“That won’t be necessary.” Starscream interrupts, waving his servo dismissively. “I believe I have a grasp on the situation.” His optics flit back to your eyes, and you briefly forget how to breath. “And the solution may be quite _simple_.”

  
  
You swallow hard, trying hard to not interpret that last sentence. You begin to fidget nervously with your fingers while Shockwave retrieves a (presumably blank) data pad. He’s probably going write down some awful electroshock treatment to fry your lady parts or recommend some sort of frontal-lobe lobotomy without anesthetic or something else horrible and today was going to be the day your insane noncon space slave adventure was finally going to end.

  
  
“What is the proposed solution?”

  
  
“Let me speak to her.“ Starscream turns to face you again. The smirk is back. “Alone.”

  
  
Or maybe, just maybe, today was going to be the day you finally _get laid._

  
  
“Illogical. I will remain here to observe while you apply your solution.”

  
  
You make a mental reminder to amend your graffiti to “SHOCKWAVE IS A  COCKBLOCKING DOUCHE” next chance you got.

  
  
“It would be better if you left. You clearly scare the girl. Numbers don’t lie.”

  
  
“Illogical.”

  
  
“Shockwave I will leave a full transcript and report of our exchange if you will fragging _leave us alone_.”

“Illogi-”

  
  
“ _Look-_ ” Starscream pokes his finger against the cyclop’s chassis aggressively, and you notice that while Shockwave was clearly the larger of the two, the seeker still had a considerable high advantage, and used it to positively loom over the other mech. _“I_ am the one responsible for capturing this human, _I_   am the one running the genetic restoration program. If there’s a problem with her that you cannot handle yourself, _I_   will take care of it and you have clearly demonstrated you cannot handle this. Now _go_.”  
  
There’s a pause. You grit your teeth impatiently.  Shockwave does not visibly concede, but turns toward the door nonetheless.

  
  
“I expect to be informed of the results.” He say, voice cold and flat as always, before stepping over the threshhold, the doors closing automatically behind him.

  
  
Starscream exhales, frame slouching in frustration.

  
  
“Processor-less piece of _slag_ ” he spits, before turning back to you, mischievous glare in his optics.

  
  
Is it true?” he asks, fake pout on his face. “That you’re giving poor, sweet Shockwave a hard time?”

  
  
“Not anymore so than usual.” you reply honestly, wishing your racing heart would slow down long enough that you could _stop shaking._

  
  
“My grasp of earth language may not be perfect,” he gestures toward the graffiti burned into the wall “but you seem to have referred to him as a sort of orifice cleaner.”

  
“It’s an accurate description.“ you shoot back,  a smile tugging on the corners of your mouth as he laughs again, high and pearly. You wonder how long your knees will last if he keeps that up.

  
  
“So,” he begins, mirth suddenly gone from his voice ”Mind telling me why your "efficiency” has dropped so low that high and mighty Shockwave would come crawling to me for help?”

  
  
_Fun while it lasted._

  
  
“I…uh…” you stumble over your words, his change of tone having sapped your mood quiet efficiently. You consider dropping a hint vague enough to get away with, but decide better of it. _Talking shit about Shockwave time was over, facing reality about anatomical differences time was now._

  
  
“Motivation.” you answer honestly “I am not being motivated properly.”

  
  
“And the possibility of losing your life if you don’t comply isn’t motivation enough?” he sneers. You scowl back at him.

  
  
“I don‘t know how it is with you guys,“ you say “But the fear of death can only motivate us humans for so long before we give up and stop trying. We’re more “efficient” you make finger quotes in the air “When we’re satisfied. When all our needs are being met.”

  
  
“You’re fed, you’re kept clean, you’re given all the necessary supplies to live and be kept comfortable. What else could you possibly require?”  
  
  
“That depends on what you’re willing to provide.” You smile wryly, belaying the copious amount of sweat pooling at the back of your neck. “I have other, more, uh…less concrete needs.”

  
  
“Care to elaborate?”

  
  
_Don’t tempt me_. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re not willing to do first?”

  
  
“Fair enough” Starscream taps his face thoughtfully.  “Well, I am not letting you free.”

  
  
“Obviously”

  
  
“You are not going to stop working.”

  
  
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

  
“I’m not going to retrieve any other fleshlings.”

  
  
“You killed all my friends when you came to get me.”

  
  
“It‘s not my fault the vehicons all have two left pedes. Or that you humans squish so easily.” He leans forward, regarding your sternly. “Aside from that, I am willing to accommodate any other requests. Within _reason._ ”  he stresses the last word. “So what it exactly are your _needs?”_

  
  
_“I can think of at least one right now”_   you think ruefully, pushing it to the back of your mind. You hadn’t really expected to get this far, and racked your brain to come up with a more sane request.

  
  
 “Well to get started, you could answer some questions for me.”

  
  
“Questions?“

  
  
“You have me mapping out human genomes here, recording the effects your genetic material has on mine through exposure, and you told me you wanted to use it to save your  race somehow.”

  
  
“Well I’m glad your audio receptors are functioning.” He says, rolling his optics sarcastically

  
  
“Hilarious” you glare back at him. “But nobody has bothered to tell me how you guys actually _reproduce.”_

  
  
 He raises an eyebrow at you, and you suspect that _he_ suspects something, but manage to maintain your composure. “We’re both scientists. I’m sure you can understand my curiosity, especially considering the work I’m doing.”

  
  
“Fair enough.” he replies without missing a beat. “I know this may be hard for your tiny human brain to process, but we are an ancient race, and have evolved multiple means of reproducing.” He struts over to the holographic display as you watch _“those legs should be criminal on a mech”_  and punches some infinitely complex command in cybertronian keys. An image flashes onscreen of a decidedly primitive looking robot in what appeared to be a great deal of pain as liquid metal oozed out from under it’s plating.

  
  
“This is one of the earliest recorded methods. It’s known as “budding”. It’s essentially mitosis and the offspring shares almost identical DNA with the parent. This weakened the gene pool over time, and is ultimately why Vector Sigma became necessary.”

  
  
“Vector-what?”

  
  
“Sigma, try to keep up, would you?” his wings twitch in irritation as he turns back to the consol to punch in a different code. “A supercomputer that bestowed sentient lifeforce into cold constructed frames. It made reproduction much easier and faster, but usually the frames had to be cannibalized from pre-existing machines.” He made a disgusted noise.  “Ghoulish, really, but it was rendered inactive when Cybertron went offline, which is why we had to explore alternative options.”

  
  
“Wait, your whole planet went offline?” “you ask, eyes wide. “You never told me that.”

  
  
“It wasn’t necessary.“ his wings droop slightly, and his expression softens for a moment. “Our war spans eons. Our planet was one of the casualties” A pained look glows in his optics, so subtle you may have imagined it. You feel a ball form in your throat. You were used to feeling a myriad of bizarre, unlikely emotions toward your captor, but sympathy hadn’t been one of them until now.

  
“That’s over and done with, nonetheless” he says suddenly, eager to change the subject. “We’re here to find a new way of propagating life, not fix the old one. So stop interrupting me, would you?“ He tabbed over on the screen to show you an image of a sleek, featureless body,  seemingly made out of the same material that spilled out of the robot’s frame in the first holograph.

  
  
“This type of protoform is a physical compiler. “He starts “In practice we’ve only managed to utilize one set of genes. It selects one or the other based on superiority and essentially creates a clone. But in theory, it allows us to enter two separate genetic sequences and construct a new, unique one based off the originals. Much like how your species reproduces.”

  
  
“So that’s why you guys decided to swipe me.” you mumble just loud enough for him to hear.

  
  
“Come now, you’re acting like you don’t enjoy it here.”

  
  
“Ha ha.”

  
  
He tabs through several other more obscure methods of propagating while you lean back, feeling smug as everything went according to plan. Your plan to. . . have Starscream teach you cybertronian sex-ed. Because that’s _totally what your plan was, right?_

  
  
Right. You are an idiot. This was well-established. But maybe you could nudge the conversation back on the right course.

“Why do you have females?”

  
He stops mid sentence to give you a perplexed look. “Females?”

  
  
“I have access to the databases, I know the autobots have at least one, and I’ve seen one skulking around the ship before. Y’know, black and purple, eight legs?”

  
  
“Ugh, don’t remind me. That little wench would remove my spark with her denta if she had the chance.”

  
  
Nasty. You grimace at the mental image, but continue “My point is, why do you even have females if they play no part in reproduction? Every method you listed so far was asexual.”

  
  
“Femmes. We call them femmes, and their scarcity is why we had to evolve different methods of reproducing in the first place. If you had let me finish explaining you’d know-“ He stops suddenly. You hold you breath, wondering, hoping he was thinking somewhere in the same ballpark as you are. An amused smile spreads over his face.

  
  
“On a far more serious note,” he begins, and _shit_ you don’t remember him picking you up, but he did, and you cling to his servo for dear life as he brings you level with his face. “If what Shockwave says is true, and irritatingly enough, it usually _is_ , you seem to experience some sort of _euphoria_   when I grace you with my presence?”

  
  
_Cocky bastard_. You chew on your lip, using every iota of willpower you have to not break eye contact. “Numbers don’t lie.”

  
  
“Ha! I suspected as much.” he laughs, no, _barks_. Humiliation eats at you as you smack your forehead with your hand and groan in exasperation. “Not that it’s unusual,” he muses, tapping a finger against his faceplate. “I’ve brought many a mech and femme to their knees by merely _looking_   at them.”

  
  
_Conceited cocky bastard_. You want to roll your eyes at him but you can’t, because your own knees weren’t working because he was _right_. You weren’t the only one to steal glances. Passing groups of vehicons would murmur amongst themselves when he passed and you’d even witnessed Shockwave staring for a moment too long as he’d walked out the door once. He looked damn good, he knew it, and that was _dangerous_ , and that’s exactly why you’re verifiable drooling right now.

  
  
“Though I must admit, this is the first time I’ve ever elicited this kind of response from a fleshling.” He stares at you, optics burning like fireballs. “Tell me ,dear ‘___’ He murmurs, so close the vibrations of his voice roar through you. “Did you honestly want to know about cybertronian reproduction, or does this have something to do with these “needs” you so conveniently skimmed over?”

  
  
This was it. You could either start backpedaling faster than the speed of light and go back to daydreaming under an alcove and making passive-aggressive insults at Shockwave, or you could plunge headfirst down the rabbit hole and see how far you made it before you suffocated.

  
So you swallow hard, put your sanity aside, and reply with 100% honesty.  
  
  
“What if I told you it was both?”  
  
  
_Rabbit hole it is._  
  
  
“Amusing. What if I told you I wouldn’t touch a fleshling if my life depended on it?”  
  
  
Your blood turns to ice again as your ill-defined plan breaks into a million pieces around you. You slump into his hand, utterly crushed, until you realize that you’re still _in_   his hand and he’s _already_   touching you and he’s a _lying fuck_.

  
So you roll the dice, and make a bold move. If were going to die, you were going to die in the footsteps of so many humans before you : By trying your _damnedest_   to get laid.

  
“If you meant that you wouldn’t have picked me up in the first place, and you sure as _slag_   would‘ve dropped me by now.”

“Who says I won’t?”

  
  
“You went through far too much trouble to get me and I’m nowhere near done with my work. The only other person to who has a chance at solving this problem is Shockwave, and if he completes the project without me, you won’t get the credit for it.” He scowls  at the mention of Shockwave. You tuck it away as future ammunition.

  
  
“Clever girl.” he purrs, and lifts a talon to stroke the side of your face. You are relatively certain you are shaking hard enough travel through solid matter and when you suddenly find yourself on the floor unharmed you assume you have.

  
_“Fascinating”_   you think, torn between curiosity and panic, but just as you begin to ponder the rate of particle displacement required for you to vibrate through the ships’s hull you find yourself pressed against the wall, one hand pressed against your hip, the other cupping your chin. Cold, metallic, _human sized_   hands.

  
  
Well, almost human sized. Ten feet tall was still verifiably giant, but now your head came up to at least mid chassis, and his servos were small enough, gentle enough, to lift your face up to his so he could stare smoldering into you. Your heart roared, your breath came in rapids bursts, and you knew this time he was close enough to hear it.

  
  
“If you don’t calm down you’ll have a heart attack.” he teases softly, ex-venting hot against your neck. “We don’t want Shockwave rushing back in here, now do we?“

  
  
You open and close your mouth several times, trying to agree, trying to ask him exactly how he’d managed to shrink down to (roughly) human size, trying to ask why he smelled like cold steel and chemical spice and _why the hell did that turn you on_   but all you could manage was a nearly inaudible “How?”

  
  
“Mass conversion.” he replies smugly. “Most of us can alter our size to some extent during transformation, but some of us are particularly adept at it. Why, Soundwave made a hobby out of turning into a human audio device light enough to be carried vorns ago. As for myself, I’ve never had much need to alter my size. Until now.”

  
  
Until now. That was it. Deal sealed. Your plan had worked. Your insane “you honestly want to have sex with a robot what the fuck _stop **stop.**_ ” plan had worked.

  
  
“Such a shame that you’re human.” he mutters, causing your heart to fall into your stomach. “Your frame is sleek, curvaceous, you’d made an incredible flyer.” you feel the itch of desperation setting in as he glides his hands along your sides, tracing your inner thigh with a single talon. “And you’re so unexpectedly, deliciously _warm_.” he murmurs into your neck, helm resting on your shoulder. “But if it ever got out that a fleshling interfaced with me I’d be the laughing stock of my entire armada.”

  
  
This was another test. A test where the entire point is to out-Starscream _Starscream_. He wants to you beg, to plead your case and he’s enjoying the struggle, the sick bastard. Anger lashes at you but you tell yourself that you’re to far in to back out, that you probably couldn’t back out now. _"Oh, I'll play your stupid game alright."_ you think, determination rising in your chest.  _"And I'm going to win."_

“Laughing stock?” you scoff, indignation in your voice “No it’s _research_. You’d be the first to interface with a human. That’s a _conquest_. _Scientific_ conquest.”

   
  
There’s a pause as he drinks in your reasoning and you can almost hear the cogs whirring in his processor. “You have a point. But I digress-”

  
  
_“Don’t you fucking 'digress' with me"_ This is it. One well timed explosion to bring the wall down and luckily enough you’d saved a grenade.

  
“That is, unless,” you crane up on your tiptoes, leveling your face as best you could with his as he looms over you, impossibly alien and tall. “You’d rather than honor go to Shockwave?”

  
  
That was it.

  
  
He snarls, and throws you against the wall, and before you have time to cry out in surprise he crashes his faceplate against yours, forcing his glossa into your mouth and pinning you upright with his leg between your thighs. There’s no room to move, no room to breathe and you find yourself struggling just to move your arms out of the way and grab his shoulders for support.

  
  
He finally breaks away from your mouth, bruised at this point, ex-venting hard, a sick mixture of anger and anticipation in his optics.

  
  
“Should I take that as a yes?” you gasp.

  
  
“Shut up” he growls,  swallowing your surprised protest with his mouth as he shifts his servos to your ass and the small of your back to pin you into a higher position on the wall, pulling you flush against his groin and begins a slow, deliberate grinding motion against your hips. It’s fluid, smooth, but unmistakably primal and your breath hitches in your throat as he buries his helm in the groove between your neck and shoulder and bites down just hard enough to break the skin.

  
  
You squeak and he chuckles, deep  and rumbling against your skin. “So you enjoy a bit of pain, do you?” he purrs, digging his talons into your thigh definitely hard enough to leave scars, and you cry out this time trembling and desperate.

  
  
You wrap your legs around his waist for support as he withdraws a talon to slice a line clean through your shorts, pressing his palm experimentally against your exposed pussy. You shudder against his touch, warmer now than it was, but still cold enough to make your hair stand on end. He draws slow, deliberate circles around your clit and you bite against the cabling in his neck to stifle your cries, but when he presses two of them in and pumps them slowly, gently you _break_   against him, and  cry out a completely incomprehensible version of his name.

  
  
He hums, satisfied as he withdraws his fingers, before forcing you back into position pinned between the wall and his groin. “Not as different as I’d thought” he grins wickedly as you instinctively reach between his legs and you realize with dawning horror _you actually have no idea what you’re doing_.  You fumble, groping air as Starscream watches, amused, before finally taking your hand and pressing it against the smooth panel on the front. You can’t see, what with the position you’re crammed into, but you hear the gentle clinks of the plating falling away, and  you can feel his spike, thrumming and pulsing, pressed tight against your exposed body. It’s thick, veins glowing an unearthly red, and in all likelyhood _not going to fit._

  
You swallow hard and look up at him nervously. “I don’t suppose you can convert the mass on _this_ any further?”

  
  
Luminescent red eyes narrow to slits and he gives you an oddly compassionate look before settling into his trademark infuriating smirk.

  
  
“I can.” he answers sincerely. “But I’m not going to.”

  
  
He gives no further warning as he presses in. Slowly, thank Primus, but still _painfully_   and you bite your lip so hard it bleeds before you give in and scream, actually _scream_ as he presses the rest of his length in, pausing for a moment at the hilt to give you time to catch your ragged breath.

  
  
“Easy, easy,” he murmurs into your neck, stroking the side of your cheek reassuringly with his spare servo as he begins to move slowly inside you, uncharacteristically cautious of his speed. You inhale in short bursts, still having trouble breathing, deathgrip on his shoulders as you try to find the strength to move with him, and somehow manage to get enough leverage to do so, earning yourself a growl of approval.

  
  
“If I had any idea how fragging _warm_   you were I’d have initiated this stellar cycles ago” he hisses, grabbing your hips painfully tight as he moves faster in tempo with your attempts to match his pace. It still hurt, tears still stung in the corners of your eyes but your body beings to adjust and you begin the slow transition from discomfort to ecstasy. He must’ve noticed because he comes to a screeching halt, wicked smile splayed across his face.

  
  
“You stopped. Why the _fuck_ did you stop?!” you spit.

  
  
“Beg for it.”

  
  
“Beg for what?”

  
  
“Beg for my spike.” he vents into your ear, low and rumbling. “Beg me to keep fragging you.”

  
  
“You can’t be serious.” you whine, squirming on his spike, trying desperately to move yourself with no avail.

  
  
“I’m waiting.”

  
  
“F-fine. Frag me, _please._ ”

  
  
“Louder.”

  
  
“Please keep fragging me!”

  
  
“Good girl.” he growls, resuming his thrust at an agonizingly slow pace.

  
  
“Harder, _please_ ” you plead, voice raw with need, but he doesn’t respond.

  
  
“Say my name and I will. I’ll go as hard and fast as you want.” his ex-venting is harder and you can actually hear strain coiled behind his voice. “ _Say my name.”_

  
“S-Starscream!”

  
  
“Again.”

  
  
“Lord Starscream!”

  
  
_“One more time!”_

  
  
“Lord Starscream please don’t stop fraggin me!”

  
  
“Since you asked so nicely-“ He drives his hips back into you, forcing you both back against the wall with a distinctive clang. His frame thrums louder, pulsing in time with his thrusts. He shakes slightly from the effort of supporting you both, mumbling obscenities under his breath. You know he’s close. You’re close. Heat pools beneath your stomach and burns at you and you want nothing more than to break all over again.

  
  
 He senses this and leans in closer against you, voice straining with a trace of static against your skin as he whispers “I want you to overload for me.” You don’t need to be told twice  
  
  
The heat bursts, you dig your nails into his chassis and you cry out his name a fourth time as your body strangles his spike with your convulsions and you come _hard_ ,  feeling pinpricks of actual electricity dance over your skin as you ride out your orgasm against him.

  
  
He’s not far behind, and hilts himself into you painfully hard as he overloads in you, snarling like a beast as the same electricity rocks through his frame. Fluid spills into you for what seems like an eternity before his legs finally give out and you both slide to the floor in a bio-luminescent mess.

  
  
You consider trying to move away from the mess, too dizzy to walk, too disoriented to see where you’re going,  but surprisingly Starscream pulls you against his frame before you have a chance, draping his arm over your (mostly) naked body and you lie with your head in his lap in a dazed stupor as your brain tries in vain to process what the _fuck_   just happened.

  
  
“Please tell me,” you manage through gulps of air. “That you’re not actually considering giving Shockwave that transcript.”

  
  
“Ha. I never intended to begin with.” his voice is still unsteady, peppered with static. “Besides, it makes more sense to keep this, ah, _transgression_   between us quiet, don’t you think?”

  
 You nod in agreement. Silence falls. You have no idea how long you lay there against him, listening to the gentle hum of his frame. This was sick, this was fucked up in so many different ways but it was also perfect, and you do your best to burn this memory into your mind because the chances of anything like this ever happening again were slim to none.

  
  
“I believe it may be in everyone’s best interests,” Starscream begins, slowly. “To have you moved to my quarters.”  
  
  
Maybe not _that_   slim.

  
  
“To promote “efficiency“?” you ask, somewhat joking, entirely too hopeful.  
  
  
“Precisely.” he leans back against the wall, staring lazily up at the ceiling. “You’ll come back with me tonight. We’ll have your research materials moved there tomorrow.”  
  
  
“Sounds good.” you bury your head back into his lap.  
  
  
“Mmm.”  
  
  
“Should we be at all worried about cleaning this up?”  
  
  
“Ugh. Just give me a minute will you?” he waves a servo dismissively in your direction. “Mass conversion uses up a considerable amount of energy.”  
  
  
“Fine.” you blow out a breath, starting to get the tiniest bit repulsed at the cold fluid dripping out of your body. “At least this stuff isn’t toxic to me anymore.”  
  
  
At that, you feel the seeker stiffen. You turn your head and his optics meet yours, terror unmistakable in his expression.

  
  
“It’s not, really.” you reassure him. “I mean, my DNA is 90% CNA by now and I’ve been drinking it for a little over a month.”

  
  
“Not _toxic_ , no.” he replies, far too quiet for your comfort. “But not entirely energon either. That’s why it might be a problem.”

  
  
“What problem?  What are you. . . " you trail off as the blood drains from your face.

  
  
“You never finished explaining to me why your race had females.”

  
“I tried but you _insisted_   on interrupting me!”

  
  
You grab his shoulder plating, and he suddenly looks impossibly small and scared as you stare him straight in the optics, every bit as panicked as he is.

  
  
“Does your species reproduce sexually?”

  
  
“That’s an awfully broad question.”

  
  
“ _Answer me_   Starscream.”

  
  
“We can and we have in the past and it shouldn’t have been a problem but I’ve er…failed to take into account your recent biological transition.”

  
  
“In _cybertronian?”_ you seethe, voice dripping with venom.

  
  
“Let’s just say-“ he ex-vents sharply, fidgeting nervously with his servos. “We may be seeing results of our research faster than we’d expected.”

  
  
Your heart drops. Your body is jelly, and you collapse next to the mech and join him in hyperventilating, mind reeling.

  
  
“Now this,” you sigh shakily. “Does not sound efficient.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would be lying if I said I wasn't plastered when I wrote this.
> 
> This really shouldn't exist. This was supposed to be a oneshot but then I started fucking around with the idea of an epilogue and it just kept mutating and mutating and until it really had no business being a oneshot anymore. I'm going to try to end it in the next chapter.
> 
> And with that said, I'm going to throw my laptop out the window and take as many showers as it takes to stop feeling like a creepy fuck. Enjoy.

 

 

 

“I’m going to assume you have a good explanation for this?”

 

  
  
“I do.”

 

  
  
“And that would be?”

  
  
  
“Might I so humbly suggest you remove your pede from my face so that I may more adequately explain myself?”  
  
  


“And might _I_   suggest not pushing your luck any further. _Answer me._ ”

  
  
  
You hold your breath, mind racing, head spinning, trying your damndest not to vomit with fear. Or from the lights. Or from the smell of metal scraping against metal as Megatron drives Starscream’s head into the floor with his foot.

  
  
  
Six months. Six months since your idiotic interspecies tryst, four months since you’d confirmed said tryst had resulted in some unholy hybrid abomination, and 3 _minutes_ since said abomination had begun emitting an EMP signature that not only dwarfed your own, but was strong enough to trigger the defense systems.

  
  
Which is how you found yourself watching the sire of your abomination having his head driven into the floor while you were properly restrained by your favorite one eyed giant purple _motherfucker._   
  


  
Today is not a good day.

  
  
  
“I’m waiting.”

  
  
The seeker throws a defeated glance in your direction. You give him your best _'what the hell do you expect me to do_ '  shrug in reply.  
  
  
“The female. . .is carrying.”

  
  
That must’ve been the wrong answer because instead of being smashed into the floor he’s now being smashed into the _wall_   in a chokehold. At least he’s upright.  
  
  
“You brought another fleshing aboard without my permission? Or were you so careless in your observations that the autobots sent in another gaggle of humans right under your nose?” He seethes, faceplate inches away from Starscream’s. “Humans breed like petrol rabbits. I would’ve thought you to know better.”

  
  
“N-neither!” he spits out. “No other humans, I swear!”

  
  
  
The larger mechs grip relaxes, but not by much. You’re no expert at reading expressions on the jagged, pointy expanse that comprises Megatron’s face, but if you had to guess you’d say he was bewildered.

  
  
“Then what, pray tell, is she carrying?”

  
  
Starscream moves his mouth but no sound escapes. From what you could gather physical abuse was relatively commonplace in their hierarchy and they did not injure easily. But as his flailing grows steadily weaker you can’t help the feeling of anxiety rising in your chest, along with more nausea. 

  
  
Part of you enjoys this. After all, what gravid female hasn’t  secretly longed to see their male counterpart suffer physical retribution in their place? But you’d be flat out lying if you said the sight of the closest thing you ever had to a partner thrashing against the wall in pain doesn’t bother you. In fact it really, really bothers you.

  
  
Probably because hormones.  Hormones are making you tear up even though this was funny and _actually sort of hot what the fuck_.

  
  
  
“Just kiss already you _whores.”_

  
  
  
“WHAT?!”

  
  
  
Hormones are also, apparently, why you can’t keep your fucking mouth shut.

  
  
“I mean sparkling. I _totally_   meant sparkling!”  you correct yourself as the larger mech turns to you, optics widened in surprise.

  
  
  
“Come again?”

  
  
  
You exhale sharply, trying not to crumble under his burning gaze, trying not to crumble at all because your equilibrium had been fucked for weeks anyways. Because hormones.

  
  
“T-that’s what you call them, r-r-ight?“ you curse yourself for stuttering, but blame it on hormones. “It’s emp field is what tripped the alarm. I would have requested the necessary adjustments be made if somebody had bothered to tell me it would have an emp field.” you glower at a certain air commander currently being suspended from the wall.

  
  
“How was…s’possed…know…halfbreed….”

  
  
  
Megatron blinks. It would have been disarming in any other situation but it just made you more nauseous. Somehow.

  
  
  
“Forgive me if I sound suspicious,” he says, optics narrowed. “But you expect me to believe that a human frame is capable of gestating a sparkling?”

  
  
  
“I hardly qualify as human at this point.” you return, somewhat bitterly. “My, er, “frame” has been altered radically. Shockwave recorded the changes in detail.” you look expectantly over at the cyclops. If nothing else you could at least rely on him to back up your claim with the log he’d so arduously kept of your mutation.

  
  
  
“I must clarify, Lord Megatron, that when I suggested that Starscream alter the nature of his visitations with the human I did not recommend interfacing as an acceptable activity.”

  
  
You make a mental note to forgo the graffiti next time you got your hands on a blowtorch and instead apply it directly to Shockwave’s face.

  
  
  
“You don’t mean to tell me. . .the sire is…” the warlord trails off as Starscream, still dangling by his throat against the wall, weakly raises a servo. You screw your eyes shut, unable to watch. This is it. Starscream’s dead. You’re dead. Sparkling’s dead. It’s over.

  
  
  
 _“At least I got some mind blowing sex out of it.”_ you think as you close your eyes and await death, shit-eating grin plastered on your face

  
_Clang_

  
There. That wasn’t so bad. Painless, really. Except you’re not dead, and _clang_   isn’t the sound that your body makes when being squished into oblivion, but the sound of Megatron at long last dropping Starscream, unable to keep his hold because he’s doubled over in laughter. Horrifying, ear-drum-damaging laughter, but laughter nonetheless. You shoot the seeker a completely baffled look. He returns it in full.

  
  
  
“How hilariously unorthodox.” he grins wickedly, turning to face you. “Mind telling me which one of you concocted this _brilliant_   plan?”

  
  
  
Emphasis on brilliant, dripping with sarcasm. Alright. You’re not out of the woods yet, but you had the supplies you needed to get there.

  
  
  
“It was Starscream’s idea, my lord.”

  
  
“I’m sure it was.” his optics shine with barely contained mirth. You feel sick again.  
  
  
  
Starscream smirks infuriatingly for half a second, for your benefit alone. You resist the overwhelming urge to punch it right off his faceplate.

  
  
  
“I stalled on my research with the protoforms. My genetics were already largely altered from the energon exposure and after Starscream so kindly gave me a lesson in cybertronian reproduction he suggested that a more, ah, _carnal_   method might yield better results.”

  
  
  
“And so it did.”

  
  
  
You grit your teeth. It’s not easy handing every iota of credit to the smug piece of shit that had knocked you up (by sheer accident at that.) But unless you want to admit that you’d spent the better half of a year pining over that sweet robot ass and the better half of an hour _actually begging for it_   you don’t have an alternative.

  
  
“Alright Starscream.” Megatron begins, prodding the still gasping-for-air mech on the ground with his pede. “While your approach to the situation may have been questionable, you promised the human would find us a new way to reproduce. And she has.” He waves a servo dismissively, and Shockwave releases you unceremoniously onto the ground. You stumble for a moment, doing you best to limp/crawl your way over to Starscream before giving up on motion completely and slump into a heap on the floor next to him.  
  


  
“You are hereby granted unlimited access to the energon supplies and may oversee any of the earth mining operations as you see fit.”

  
  
Starscream croaks out something that resembles “thank you”, between static fits as Megatron makes his way towards the door, motioning for Shockwave to follow him. The cyclops however, pauses at the doorway, turning a single, unnerving eye towards you.

  
  
“I have underestimated your problem-solving capability” he says. “If you had informed me that you required an interfacing partner to test your hypothesis, I would have been willing to assist you.”

  
  
  
You blink, failing to come up with a response as he walks through the door.

  
  
  
There’s no way. He didn’t.

  
  
Starscream growls, narrowed optics following the large mech suspiciously as he disappears down the corridor.

  
  
  
 _He did_.  Well, no he didn’t, he’d actually complimented your ingenuity (if your uncontrollable lust and a lapse in judgment could be called that) but cold, calculating, emotionless Shockwave paying you a compliment was probably the closest he‘d ever come to making a pass at you.

  
  
 But more importantly, _Starscream got jealous about it_.  Well, stand-on-your-head and -cross-your-eyes maybe kinda jealous but still jealous and _oh fuck that’s also kinda hot_.

  
  
That and you’d not only saved his sorry aft from Megatron’s wrath but you’d actually managed to bump him up higher on the totem pole than he’d ever been before. He owed you his life and his newfound respect. Not that he’d ever admit it.

  
  
  
“Be grateful, it’s not often I tell anyone this.” the seeker mutters, just loud enough for you to hear. “But I suppose I owe you.”

  
  
  
Nevermind. Today _is_ a good day. You grin widely as you feel pride rising in your chest, your throat, even, and

  
  
  
_Oh god that’s not pride._

  
  
  
Finally, after nearly an hour’s worth of interrogation you can no longer stave off your nausea and spew iridescent glowing liquid, missing Starscream’s pede by an inch.  
  


  
“Disgusting.”

  
  
 You cringe, fully expecting to be reprimanded for having the audacity to vomit in his presence, but much to your surprise, he (rather hesitantly) scoops you up with a servo as he shakily gets to his feet.

  
  
  
“Given the situation I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did.” he grumbles, setting you on his shoulder.

  
  
  
You find yourself at a loss for words as your face heats up. Because hormones.  
  
  
  
***********

 

  
  
“You need to recharge.”  
  
  
You hum loudly, doing your best to ignore the seeker as you inspect your tissue samples for the third, and final time today. A hasn’t changed a bit. B is verifiably dead, C has begun to sprout what resembled tentacles, and D makes you want to puke. Everything makes you want to puke, but you write it down anyways.

  
  
“Are you even listening to me?”

  
  
  
“Sleep. It’s called sleep.” you reply, not bothering to look over your shoulder as you punch the changes into your data pad. “And no I don’t need any.”

  
  
  
“I disagree. You look awful.”

  
  
  
“Sorry, I guess I should‘ve used the time you were getting strangled to put on makeup and do my hair.” you shoot back sarcastically, eyes glued to C, who’s tentacles you swear had begun to twitch slightly. Gross.

  
  
“I’d hold your tongue if I were you, human.” he growls, and you deflate slightly. He only ever defaults to calling you “human” or “fleshling” when you’d pissed him off, and you do _not_ have the energy to deal with a pissed off Starscream right now.  
  
  
“Sorry.” you admit genuinely. Your head spins and you brace yourself against the table to stay upright. “I just feel like shit, is all.”

  
  
  
“Sorry _what?”_

  
  
  
“Sorry _my lord.”_ you hiss through clenched teeth.

  
  
  
“That’s better.” he shifts himself into a sideways lying position on his berth, servo posed in a perfect “come hither” pose that would have had you creaming your panties if there weren’t five of him.  “Recharge. Now.”

  
  
  
“Ugh” you cradle your aching cranium in your hands, waiting for the room to stop spinning, and for all five C’s to stop wiggling. _Gross._ “Just gimme a minute.”

  
  
“Why do you still insist on working after I’ve dismissed you multiple times?” he muses, lazily running his talons up and down his chassis.

  
  
“Because I’m not done.” you answer, punching thin air as you tried in vain to spell “tentacles“ in your log. “You can’t reasonably expect me to live through multiple uh, “gestations” so I need to find a way to get the protoforms to compile two genetic codes.”

  
  
  
“As if I‘d consider something so primal to be a longterm solution.” he snorts indignantly, rolling his optics “Besides, after that last stint you pulled, you’ve proven you’d be more useful as a consort than a broodmare.”  
  
Wait.

  
What.   
  
  
_“What?!”_  
  
  
“Don’t act like you didn’t hear me.”  he smirks, apparently amused by how quickly you‘d become flustered “Your quick thinking pulled both our aft’s out of the fire and made me look good. It would be foolish of me not to keep your around in the event of similar situations.”

  
  
“Well, you know what they say.” you feel dizzy, still processing ’consort’ to the best of your ability. “Behind every F-16 there’s a woman smiling.”  
  


“What?”  
  
  
“It’s an earth expression…sort of. It mean’s sucesfulwomanzamans-” you slur as the dizziness becomes too much and you careen towards the floor, only for Starscream to sweep you up last second.  
  
  
  
“Get it? Because you turn into a plane.”  
  
  
  
“You’re delirious.”  
  
  
  
“Fuck you.”

  
  
  
“In your condition? Hardly. You’re done for the day.” he says with a note of finality, placing you with uncharacteristic gentleness in the crook between his throat and chassis.

  
  
“But …tentacles…ugh fine.” you concede, allowing yourself to roll onto your side, heart still roaring in your chest because he didn’t just say that. He did _not_   just fucking tell you to be his consort because that was something that happened in the wild daydreams of recently abducted geneticists and _not_   in reality.

  
  
“Calm down.” he murmurs, ex-venting hot against you as you realize just how fast and loud you’d been breathing. “You’re ill enough as is. Panicking will only upset the sparkling.”  
  


  
 _Sparkling._ You swallow hard, taking deep slow, breathes. You’d done your best to banish that  facet of your reality to the back of your mind. You could wall off emotion with science quiet efficiently and had been doing so for the duration of your imprisonment. But on account of stupid stupid hormones it wasn’t a question of if, but _when_   your wall would crack.

  
  
  
“How are you doing?” he says suddenly, the break in silence making you jump. “The both of you?”

  
  
_Hairline crack_

  
  
“H-how the hell am I supposed to know?” you ask, honestly not knowing the answer.  
  
  
“If you were cybertronian it would probably have started pinging you by now. I suppose that would be unrealistic to expect, given your biology.” his voice is softer than you would’ve liked. In fact now would be a _great_ time for him to be a total asshole. “Did you at least feel something when it’s em field tripped the alarm?”  
  
  
“Yes.” you admit, thinking back. “It…interacted with mine. Sort of tugged on it.”  
  
  
“That’s promising. I was beginning to worry it’s growth wasn’t progressing properly.” he reclines, helm now resting against the berth, optics half lidded, looking every bit as exhausted as you were. “Has it moved at all?”  
  
  
 _Foundation crack_

  
  
  
“Uh, I think it kicked me in the spleen earlier.” you say slowly, wishing he’d say something awful, insult your intelligence, call you a squishy fleshing _, anything please_. “But that might’ve just been when Shockwave dropped me.”

  
  
“How many times do I have to tell that slagging _oaf_   to be careful with you?” He makes a thoroughly displeased noise, somewhere between grumbling and snarling. “I expect you to inform me if he manhandles you again.”

  
  
You nod, gritting your teeth so hard it hurts. Six months. Your composure had remained absolute for six months. Despite the constant nausea, the dizziness, the inability to walk in a straight line and the very real possibility of death you hadn’t so much as shed a tear and you’d very much prefer it stay that way. This is an experiment like any other. You’d record it and log it’s progress and be glad for the opportunity, damnit. _You can do this._

  
  
Before you’ve had a chance to settle into your new determination, you’re jolted back to the present as Starscream pulls you flush against his chassis leaving his servo to rest on the lower half of your body.

  
  
“I’m taking you to the med bay tomorrow.” he says matter-of-factly, not bothering to open his optics. “Knockout can do a thorough scan, rule out any problems. If nothing else we’ll get a look at the sparkling.”

  
  
  
Sparkling. Not “it.” not “hybrid” not “sweet Primus what the fuck have we done.” _Sparkling._

 

  
_Fissure._

  
  
  
You relax under his servo, feeling the gentle thrum of his frame against your back as you shove your fist in your mouth to drown out your sobbing, warm tears rolling down your face.  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said in the last chapter that I'd end it in the next chapter. 
> 
> I lied.
> 
>  
> 
> I know lot of authors credit songs as their prompts, and while I generally avoid those like the plague I must admit I listened to the Chromatic's cover of "Into the Black" while writing this fic more often than I would have liked.  
>    
> EDIT : Holy spellcheck batman this chapter is really rough around the edges. Sorry for all the spelling mistakes and what not. I wrote this and posted this shitfaced because I can only write this shitfaced because it's so fucking weird and creepy goddamn.
> 
> FUCK

It’s roughly three months later that you wake up instinctively knowing today is going to suck.

  
  
  
It’s that shitty kind of morning where you can hardly drag yourself off the berth before you heave your guts out, the floor is too cold, your energeon tastes like brake fluid and your 30 ft tall alien robot consort almost steps on your at least three times before he’d even left the berth and didn’t even apologize. (Not that he ever did)  
  
  
It’s that shitty kind of afternoon where even the dim laboratory lights give you a headache, the sparkling has decided that your right kidney is it’s punching bag, and sample C has escaped it’s tank and you can’t find it anywhere _damnit._  
  
  
But when you bend over to sweep up pieces of glass from the broken tank, and a sharp pain explodes inside your head leaving stars to dance across your vision, that instinct grows into a nagging suspicion that this evening’s level of shittiness would be the stuff of legend.  
  
  
“Please tell me,” you sigh, clutching your head as said consort walks through the berth door. “That you have some record of the material you had me using for sample C.”  
  
  
“That doesn’t sound like a proper greeting to me.” he sneers, wagging a talon at you dismissively.  
  
  
“Because it’s _not._   As far as I can tell it’s not human or cybertronian. It crawled out of it’s tank and I don‘t know where it went.”  
  
  
“Address me properly first.”  
  
  
“Oh my god-” your clasp a hand to your face in exasperation. “Lord Starscream there’s a fucking octopus loose somewhere in this room could you please tell me why?” _I hope it crawls up your exhaust pipe when you recharge you piece of shit._  
  
  
“My, aren’t we moody today.” he smirks. Your eye twitches. “I’ll have to check with the vehicons that were assigned to pick you up, they’re the ones responsible for gathering the samples.”  
  
  
“Don’t you mean _abducted_ me?”  
  
  
“And here I though we’d moved past that.” you feel your stomach lurch as he scoops you up in his servo, without warning as always. “Sparkling kicking your spleen again?”  
  
  
“Kidneys.” you reply, and as if on cue you feel another sharp jab to your internal organs, hard enough that you keel over in pain.    
  
  
 “Been at it all day.” you wheeze “What are the odds this thing is just gonna punch it’s way out?”  
  
  
“Unless that’s how human infants are accustomed to exiting their gestation chambers, zero.” He pauses thoughtfully as you use one of his talons to pull yourself back to your feet. “They don’t exit like that, do they?”  
  
  
“Not really, but some women might tell you otherwise.” you crack a weary smile. “What are the odds I’m going to die anyways?”  
  
  
“How the hell should I know?” he snaps back, though seems to falter, just slightly, at your crestfallen expression.  “Though I doubt you will. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?”  
  
  
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” you growl, digging your fingers into your skull in a fruitless attempt to massage your tortured cranium.  
  
  
He raises an eyebrow at your distress. “If it’s that bad we should have Knockout take a look at you again.”  
  
  
“Seriously?” you raise an eyebrow. “He had the entire medbay decontaminated when I sneezed in there. Decontaminated with _fire_.”  
  
  
“Yes I recall. What a drama queen, where does he get off throwing fits like that, honestly?“ and sweet jesus the irony in that is actually palpable. “But he’ll obey my orders, regardless.”  
  
  
“That’s nice of you to offer, but I sincerely doubt there’s anything he can do to help.” you say honestly.  “Just put me back down by my desk. The diodes are still functioning, I’ll check my vitals remotely.”  
  
  
“Pity, and here I was thinking you could accompany me to the bridge.” he says, setting you down with remarkable gentleness next to your control interface. “We’re nearly done restoring the omega lock. You’ll want to see this, believe me.”  
  
  
You feel a cold bolt of fear run down your spine, and not just because you’d be kicked there again. _Fuck you kid_.  But because you spent what little willpower you hadn’t designated to not dying to pretending your captors weren’t participating in nefarious activities that threatened your planet.  
  
  
“Sounds nice.” You reply dryly. “Exactly what were you planning on doing with that thing again?”  
  
  
“My my, you really weren’t listening the first time I told you. We’re using it to cyberform your planet.”  
  
  
_Gonna have one hell of a time repressing this one_. You cough, trying not to wither under his gaze and ignore your skull-splitting-vision-impairing headache at the same time. He probably _had_ told you, and you probably _weren’t_ paying attention, but he’s still an asshole, and probably only wants you to watch with him to get some twisted satisfaction out of it. Satisfaction you’re not about to give him.

  
“That’s…uh, neat.”

  
  
He blinks. Whatever he was expecting you to say, it wasn’t that.

  
  
“Neat?” he repeats flatly. “Neat? We’re in the process of colonizing your former home world and that’s _all_   you have to say about it? _Neat?!”_

  
  
You offer him a disinterested shrug. “My species didn’t do such a bang-up job of running the place. For all we know it could be an improvement.”

  
  
That’s wrong and you know it. Wrong and selfish and probably high treason on most accounts, but you have enough on your plate as it is. The fact that you hadn’t lost your mind as it was is impressive enough, right? You could be forgiven for turning a blind eye to the domination and enslavement of your race while you fragged the enemy from the safety of their warship, right?

  
Maybe, if it was just fragging. But it hadn’t been for some time. He’d asked (well, told) you to be his consort and you didn‘t disagree. You did provided guidance when he asked on earth related matters and you did have the sneaking suspicion your habit of treating your planet’s affairs like a game of Risk had probably resulted in the short lived occupation of a certain Nevada town. But really, what human wouldn’t sell out their species for an ego boost and a pat on the head? You’re no saint, but everyone gets carried away sometimes, right? Hell maybe it would be better. Maybe it would create jobs and clean up the environment. Maybe you were doing humanity a _favor._

  
Right. You’re a monster. An armchair monster, which is worse than a regular monster because you get to sit down. On the off-chance you ever make it back to a non-decepticon-controlled earth you’d probably be tried for crimes against humanity. But you can deal with that later, when you don’t feel like you’d been hit by a train. Science is  a thin barrier between you and your problems but it’s a barrier nonetheless, so you plop(crumple, more like it) back into your seat and concern yourself with less morally-ambiguous activities, like cloning and playing god.

  
  
“Maybe later, just let me confirm that I‘m not actively  dying.” you groan as the sparkling plucks at your em field like a harp, causing yet another painful wave of electricity to pulse through your brain. You bring up Shockwave’s interface, take a moment to remember which variation of “douche” you’d changed his password to that day, punch “cunt eviscerator” into the password field, and tab over to the part of the screen that displays your vitals.  
  
  
_Pulse / 30 BPM_

  
  
Normal. For you, anyways.

  
  
_Body Temp. / 120 F._

  
  
Fatal for most people. A bit on the low side, in your case.

  
  
_EEG / Extensive repair required. Consult troubleshooting guide._

  
  
You laugh silently to yourself. You have yet to deduce if Shockwave had any concept of humor but you sincerely hope he does because his brand of deadpan snark, if it were indeed such, is oddly satisfying.

  
  
_Emergence Protocol / Active_  
  
  
Your heart drops.

  
“Starscream,” you start slowly, making little effort to hide the thinly-veiled panic in your voice “Please tell me “emergence protocol” doesn’t mean what I think it does.”

  
  
  
He doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t have to, his uncanny kicked puppy impression and drooping wings confirming your suspicion beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  
  
  
“You…you can’t be serious.”

  
  
  
“Dead.”

  
  
“It’s only been nine months!”

  
  
“ONLY?!”  and he actually recoils a bit at your volume. “If you’d been through an _iota_   of what I’d had to put up with you’d offline yourself. You’d have offlined yourself in the first _month!”_

  
  
“It’s normally two full stellar cycles for femmes, you should be grateful, really.”  
  
  
You open you mouth fully intending to scream your dissenting opinion but are cut short but another hefty tug on your em field. More like a yank. Actually more like someone impaled you through a lighting rod and punched you in the gut for good measure. You flop over your desk with all the grace of a dead fish, gasping.  
  
  
“I’ll….call…Knockout.” you wheeze defeatedly, using what little strength you have left to haphazardly slam your hand down over the com button.

  
  
“Genetics lab to med-bay.” you say shakily over the wide-band. “Requesting medic.”

  
  
No response.

  
  
You try again. “Med-bay report.”

  
  
Nothing.

 

  
“Genetics lab to germaphobic _pussy._ ”  you snarl through the com. “Medical emergency you _asshole!”_

  
  
“Primus sake.” Starscream growls, tapping into his own wide-band. “Knockout report in now _that’s an order.”_

  
  
Silence. Then static.

  
  
“Not….in medbay….been boarded.”

  
The voice is almost indecipherable through the sounds of gunfire. You shoot a worried glance at the seeker.  
  
  
“Get back to the medbay, this takes priority”  
  
  
“Not….I can‘t…your problem…organic…disgusting…”  
  
  
More static. The link goes dead.  
  
  
“Frag it!” he curses, slamming a servo into the wall in frustration. “You could NOT have picked a worse time for this!”

 

  
  
You choose to ignore the glaringly obvious fact that you have no part in deciding the timing. “Is there ever a good time for this kind of thing?”

  
He growls, but offers no disagreement  “Can you hold yourself upright at all?”

  
  
“I don’t know.” you admit as he sweeps you off the ground and sets you on his shoulder before you have time to reply. “Where are we going?”

  
  
“Medbay.”

  
  
“But Knockout’s not even there.”

  
“I’m taking YOU there and then I’ll drag his sorry aft back with me kicking and screaming if I have to.”

  
  
“He sounded busy.” you struggle to stay put in your position, deathgrip on his plating. What if he’s in active combat?”

  
  
“This takes priority.” he says grimly. “He shouldn’t have left the medbay to begin with he was supposed to be tracking your vitals and - wipe that idiotic grin off your face this is _serious!”_

  
  
“Sorry.” you lie, thoroughly flushed face betraying your sarcasm. You know better than to interpret anything he said as genuine concern,  but it’s enough to pretend, and pretending is something you‘ve mastered in your time aboard this ship. “What do you want me to do? Start screaming? I’m fucking _scared.”_  
  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
  
“Am I gonna die?”  
  
  
“I don’t _know.”_  
  
  
“Wait,” you say, squinting into the distance at what appears to be a cluster vehicons being tossed like rag dolls by a large, unfamiliar green mech. “Is…is that an autobot?”

  
  
“For the last time I don’t…scrap.”

  
  
Starscream skids to a stop. At least, he tries. You have just enough time to admire his flexibility as he limbos at high speed under the fist of the other bot before you’re flung from his shoulders.  
  
  
You hit the wall. Hard. There’s a wet cracking sound upon impact and you roll to the floor in a heap. You’re fairly sure you’re screaming in pain but the intense ringing flooding your ears prevents you from hearing it.  
  
  
You wonder what the odds are of you  making it to the medbay on your own. Probably not good you think, testing your weight on your left leg, which had taken the brunt of the impact. You round those odds down to roughly _zero_   as you discover your leg not only refused to function, but was also bent sideways in the opposite direction, generously leaking a glowing blue substitution for blood

  
“Shit.” you seethe, every iota of willpower redirected into not screaming. “SHIT!” you give up and scream, electricity surging through you as the sparkling pulls and tears at your EM like taffy, obviously distressed by the impact.

  
  
The autobot, Bulkhead, if you’d studied the files correctly,  is startled by your scream just long enough for Starscream to move out of the way, and the large green mech plants his fist firmly into the wall. He spares a moment to stare at you, positively bewildered, before freeing his entombed servo, taking most of the wall with it.

  
You bite you lip. Despite the excruciating pain, or perhaps because of it, you’re worried. Starscream’s speed and dexterity(on account of his cowardice) was absolute legend but in a confined space with a mech roughly three times his mass he stood little chance of surviving, let alone escaping with the both of you intact.

  
At some point while you’re writhing in agony on the floor, options whittled down to the nub, you decide that functioning in a reality where you are actually held responsible for your actions is not an option at all. Maybe it’s because you’d honestly prefer a quick bullet execution-style to the back of your head to the pain you’re in now but if just one of you were going to escape with your life, you’d rather it be him.  
  
  
 And so you do the only thing that makes sense at the moment, and tell him to leave you there.  
  
  
“Just fucking run!” you plead at the top of your lungs, voice breaking in between convulsions. “There’s NO chance of BOTH of us GETTING  out of - gha!” you clutch your head, wishing you’d been granted an extra set of hands for clutching every other inch of your aching body. The electricity is too much to bear, the ringing deafening. “Just run!”  
  
  
He holds your gaze, red optics burning into you, the expression on his faceplate set, unreadable. You don’t really know what you had expected him to do. But you do know you hadn’t expected him to actually leave.  
  
  
Which is exactly what he does.  
  
  
You’re not sure if you’re hallucinating or not when you see him bolt down the corridor, but when you hear the familiar clicking of him transforming into his alt mode and the high-pitched screech of his rear-wings scraping the wall as he takes off, your sympathetic body allows you a moment of reprieve to go completely numb.  
  
  
He’s gone. He’s actually _gone._  
  
  
This, mercifully enough, is the straw the breaks the cyber-camel’s back and you readily welcome the growing darkness as you slip into unconsciousness. You are unaware of the gargantuan green mech cautiously picking his way over to your limp, glowing body and crouching down besides you.  
  
  
“Uh, Fowler? Raf? One of you guys?” Bulkhead starts tentatively, servo pressed against his helm to activate the com link. “I’m going to need one of you guys to send a ground bridge to my location. I found a human.” he pauses, giving you a look of utter disbelief. “I think.”  
  
  
  
*****************************

  
  
Either because karma is a bitch or because mother nature has little sympathy for her xenophillic, traitorous children, your blissful tryst with unconsciousness is short lived, and you wake with the same mind-numbing body-contorting pain coursing through you. You aren’t surprised.

  
  
You aren’t surprised when you wake up with a slew of unfamiliar faces staring back at you either, some flesh, most metal, from the berth of an unfamiliar room, though you recognize most of the faces from the files you’d poked through in your spare time on the ship, and were thus spared the need for introduction.

  
“Been a long time.” you say at last. “Since I’ve seen other humans.”  
  
  
Miko nudges Jack roughly ‘Told you. You owe me five bucks.”  
  
  
“Well, that answers one of our questions.” Ratchet says. “And poses about a hundred more.”  
  
  
You bite your lip. You’d long since given up on crying out in pain. Your body convulsed endlessly to compensate.

  
  
“We are aware you are in a great deal of pain,” Optimus, who is clearly practiced in telepathy says “But we need to know who and what  you are.”

  
  
I am…“you pause, running a list of appropriate labels through your head. “Prisoner”, “traitor” and “Stockholm-syndrome-poster-child” all seem like appropriate titles, but if you had to pick one, and only one-

  
“An idiot.” you reply glumly without an outlet to barricade you from reality any further. “I’m a goddamn _idiot.”_

  
“That’s a terrible name.” Miko says. “That’s…not really your name, is it?”

  
  
“It should be.” you laugh, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “It wraps up my entire life and explains everything quite nicely. Idiot.” you say again, pleased with how the word feels on your tongue.

  
  
They exchange confused, worried glances. All except Ratchet.

  
“Idiot doesn’t adequately explain why two thirds of your purportedly human vascular system is hydraulics. Or why you’re bleeding energon.” His voice is grating, and you wince. “ Or how you’re carrying a fully formed sparkling halfway through  it’s emergence cycle!”

  
  
“Idiot actually explains all of that with alarming accuracy.” you groan, attempting, and failing, to bring a hand up to your face to clutch it in exasperation. You’re shaking too hard.

  
Ratchet shoos away prying eyes and pulls a privacy curtain around you. You’re infinitely grateful. You like this guy, all business. Maybe in another life he could be your Shockwave and you could harass him endlessly with blowtorches and pixel dicks.

  
  
“Just try to relax.” June says. You only knew her from a single, candid image from the ship’s database where she was screaming. She’s much prettier in person. Almost angelic really. And Ratchet’s voice really isn’t grating anymore, it’s soothing, like silk and chocolate and sex and so many other wonderful things and-

  
  
Oh fuck they drugged you.

  
  
“I’m genuinely surprised-” you start, making your best effort to not slur your words. “That whatever you shot me up with is actually working.”

  
  
  
“There’s still enough of your human nervous system left to respond to morphine.” she says. “I had to give you a dose that would kill a grown horse, but we’ve stopped the tremors, at least.”  
  
  
She’s right. Your limbs feel like lead, and the pulses have slowed to a dull, irritating rumble.

  
  
“So…” you begin slowly. Your tongue feels like cotton, and words don’t come together easily. “What exactly happened?”

  
  
  
“Do you honestly want to know right now?” Ratchet asks, mercifully.

  
  
“No.” you say honestly. “Can I just get an abridged version? I’m not sure how much longer I’m gonna be conscious. Or alive.”

 

  
“You’re going to be fine.“ June places a comforting hand on your shoulder. “For the record though, you were actively dying when you were brought here.”

  
  
Ha, knew it. “Told him I wasn’t feeling good.”

  
  
“Told who?” You recognize the gargantuan green mech that had been responsible for transporting you who had somehow escaped the privacy curtain along with his human friend. You laugh in spite of yourself.

 

  
“That spineless piece of shit that dumped me off when the big green guy showed up.” you say, smiling wryly for his benefit.

 

  
  
Bulkhead chuckles, “Ha. He does that.”

 

  
Great. So you weren’t the first. That should make you feel better, but it doesn’t. Because they tell you everything, how Bumblebee of all bots had managed to kill Megatron, how Starscream and Shockwave had escaped at the last second, how your world had remained unaltered and Cybertron had been restored to it’s living self. Part of you wants to congratulate them. The other part wants to scream.

  
  
You want to get up and run somewhere far away. Somewhere there isn’t an entire peanut gallery watching you give birth to what would in all likelihood be an abomination. You want to be back on the Nemisis pretending Starscream cares about you, making Shockwave’s life miserable, and throwing yourself so hard into your work it drowns out the screaming in the back of your head telling you that you’d not only fucked up, but are _actively continuing to fuck up_ and then after a long day of pretending you didn’t give a shit you could crawl into the berth with the seeker and pretend to cuddle, pretend he cared about you both enough to imagine a family.

  
But there’s no pretending here. Dubious morality aside you’d be captured, for all intents and purposes, by the enemy. There’s no samples to study here, no protoforms to work on, no one eyed purple douche bag to harass. There’s no vacuum to view and scrutinize yourself through and making cold contact with your emotions for the first time in little over a year brings you to a horrifying revelation.  
  
  
_Yes_ you’re angry that you’d been left to the wolves at your most vulnerable, you’re pissed he’d ditched you to deliver his sparkling by yourself, you’re livid he’d knocked you up, kidnapped you, made you beg on your hands and knees to interface with him in the first place. Yes, you’re fucking _furious_   with him.

  
But you’re devastated that he’s actually _gone_.  And all the more devastated that you hadn’t seen it coming.  
  
  
You’d fallen in love with the bastard.  
  
  
And you were paying for it in spades.

 

  
  
“Idiot…explains everything.” you repeat to no-one in particular, eyes glassy amidst the flurry of movement and the shouting. Some part of you is aware that the pain has reached a crescendo and then sharply subsided, but the morphine has rendered you incapable of reaction.

  
  
Some of the movement had stopped, all of the shouting had subsided, and rather suddenly at that. Ratchet, who had reached the absolute zenith of bullshit he could reasonably process in one day, throws his servos up and walks right out of the base. You see why as June presses  a small, squawking bundle into your arms.

  
She’s a carbon copy of her sire. Her optics are the same color as your eyes, though infinitely brighter, and her plating is black where his was gray. The red accents remind you of a blackbird, so that becomes her name.

  
“Hello Blackbird.” you whisper. She stares back at you with wide, skeptical optics, as if to ask what precisely she had done to deserve this pathetic joke of a person as her mother.  
  
“Nice to meet you.” you say softly, making no attempt to hide the tears streaming freely down your face. “My name is Idiot.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. So I changed the name. It seemed more appropriate since this stopped being a one-note running gag and masturbatory aid.
> 
> I just wanted to thank everyone for sticking with this creepy garbage long enough to see it mutate into long creepy garbage. It's absolutely the first fic I ever finished and it IS finished and I'm NOT adding anything else to it ever again fuck this thing.

“Hey.” Miko says. “Wanna hear a joke?”

 

“No. You tell her for the hundreth time that day.

 

“What do you and Megatron have in common?”

 

“We both seriously considered shooting you in the face?”

 

“You _both_ got dumped by Starscream _!”_

 

Y­ou swing at her but she actually _catches_ your fist and that’s not fair because you’d spent an equal amount of time not getting stepped on by giant robots and your reflex’s aren’t _half_ that good.

 

“Too bad some of his speed didn’t rub off on you.”

 

“Oh he rubbed off on me alright.“ you grin wickedly “and I used _that_ hand.”

 

She releases your fist, horrified before scampering off, screeching something about bleach.

 

After she’d gotten over the novelty of seeing a sparkling for the first time(about five seconds in) she seemed to be infinitely more interested in harassing you over it’s glaringly obvious parentage. Which sucks for you because you’re still largely immobile due to your shattered leg so you’d been forced to come up with alternative methods of getting her to leave you alone. Most of which involved grossing her out with the very relationship she mocked you for.

 

Other than Miko’s signature brand of obnoxious, the last three days passed without much ado. Largely thanks to Ratchet who, after his initial “Fuck this shit I‘m out” freakout had ordered everyone that wasn’t Miko to leave you and Blackbird alone so that “Carrier-sparkling-bonding-protocols” would be activated.

 

On account of that he‘s become your favorite autobot. He spares you the half-second looks of pity and thinly-veiled disgust the rest of the bots give you when they think you’re not looking and concerns himself mostly with fussing over Blackbird and trying to assess what, if _any_ genetic material you had actually contributed to her tiny metal self.

 

This guy you like. This guy is totally gonna be your new Shockwave if your ever manage to break out of whatever prison they send humans that fuck decepticons to and also acquire a blowtorch.

 

But three days is the upper limit of how long the more sympathetic autobot can keep Ultra “I am the law” Magnus away from you and you know instantly from the look on his faceplate that you are about to get your shit fucked six ways from Sunday, robot-lawyer style.

 

“Who captured you?”

 

No introduction. Just goes in dry without the decency to apply social lubricant. _Cunt._

 

“Vehicons.” you say flatly, not even lying.

 

“Who ordered it?”

 

“Vehicons”

 

“What did they have you doing?”

 

You smile wryly.

 

“Vehicons.”

 

“In addition to Starscream, apparently.” and the expression on Ratchet‘s faceplate tells you he doesn’t have a salve to treat this kind of _burn._ “Do I need to add xenophilic misconduct to his laundry list of war crimes or was your relationship consensual?”

 

 _Was_ . That hurt more than it should. You pause for a moment, considering describing Blackbird’s conception to this uptight asshole in detail because you have the sneaking suspicion that it might actually offline him but something in the back of your mind tells you to remain tight lipped. You _had_ been kidnapped, you _had_ been forced to work against your will so there’s a chance that you might walk away from this unscathed and raise your weird alien robot baby and adjust to life as a cyborg and maybe get a straight to dvd lifetime movie made about your experience.

“It was-” you start, filtering through a million and one words that would accurately describe your tortured and in all likelyhood _imagined_ relationship with the seeker. “-Accidental.”

 

“Accidental?” he repeats, somehow turning it into an insult. _Red white and Blue cunt._

 

“Yes. Accidental.” you repeat flatly “ As in not on purpose. As in no fucking idea our species were even sexually compatible.”

 

“I suppose we should not be surprised.” Optimus chimes in sheerly for dramatic effect. “Considering the history both our planets share.”

  
“Yeah well-” you start. “-you should probably give Jack and Arcee the cyber-birds-and-bees because those two seem awfully comfy.”

 

Optimus doesn’t look as uncomfortable as you’d excepted but that’s what Ultra Magnus is here for. “Appropriate warnings will be issued in light of these new findings” he assures you.

 

“Speaking of appropriate,” Robot-lawyer starts, having regained his composure. “I may not be familiar with earth culture but I _am_ aware that “accidental” and “consort’ are two entirely different words in your language.”

 

And that hurts every bit as much as it should. _Shit._ You hold your breath. “Who said anything about ‘consort‘?”

 

“We downloaded and backed up all of the data from the Nemisis. Including personal records from Starscream’s berth, which, if I understand correctly, doubled as your laboratory. In every sense of the word.”

 

You wonder briefly where Jack had put that fire extinguisher you’d see him threaten Miko with, though you doubt it‘s ability to handle this degree of _burn._ But you’re more concerned, and confused with the fact that Starscream had actually bothered to record that in his log.

 

“We initially wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, since it seems you _were_ kidnapped.” Magnus says. “But other than that there seems to be no clear indicator of your innocence. The evidence is actually pointing towards the contrary.”

 

You blow out a breath. This isn’t going well, but you still have enough to work with to convince them that he’d forced you into aiding him with the more harmful activities you’d both perpetrated. You bite your tongue, trying to come up the right words to clear your name with when a sharp, excited chirrup brings your train of thought to a screeching halt.

 

Blackbird, who Raf is watching over in the corner to your right, has discovered a spider. And is positively _exhilarated_ because of it. Her tiny mind is blown by this eight legged furry little thing and she’s happy beyond comprehension because of a stupid invertebrate. and…

_and…_

 

“I’m not innocent.”

 

You say it suddenly and it surprises Optimus and Ultra Magnus. It surprises the _hell_ out of you.

 

“Your not?” Magnus says after a few seconds, having clearly exhausted his _burn_ arsenal from earlier.

 

“No. You got me. I helped him willingly.” you say, eyes unmoving from the gleeful sparkling because even though she looks at you like the idiot you are and spends every waking second trying her damndest to squirm out of your arms _she’s your daughter_ and that revelation makes you want to be a _not_ shitty person and put on your big-kid-pants and face the music you’d made like a grown-ass adult.

 

She didn’t ask to exist. She didn’t ask to have traitorous garbage for a father and an idiot for a mother. You owe her at least the _effort_ of cleaning up your act.

 

“Yeah, I fucked up.” you sigh. “So go ahead and contact whatever government action group was assembled to deal with your guy’s spacewar here on earth and let them sort me out. I’m done.”

 

“She’s lying.”

 

You freeze when you hear that voice.

 

No way.

 

No _fucking_ way.

 

 

You _shatter_   when you confirm who it belongs to.

 

It’s Starscream. It’s also Bulkhead and Wheeljack, who are dragging him through the ground bridge by his wings in a deathgrip. He looks at you for a moment with a surprisingly -not-punchable- expression.

 

Something’s wrong.

 

In his pathetic, treacherous, asshole glory he’s not struggling to get away from his captors, not screeching cutting insults at their expense. But what really clues you in that something’s wrong is that the look on his faceplate doesn’t make you want to beat the everliving _shit_ out of him, had you been granted that ability.

 

“Could you. . .repeat that?” Magnus asks slowly, every bit as shocked as you are.

 

“She’s not guilty. I threatened her life and by extension her sparkling if she didn’t comply. I forced her to do everything so why don’t you two _brutes_ just finish the job and offline me?”

 

“Considering your history we wouldn’t normally find that hard to believe,” Optimus starts. “But we have her confession to prove otherwise.”

 

“Yes well, she starts lubricating from her optics when you so much as mention sparklings. I imagine she’s positively hysterical after what… _transpired.”_

 

His emphasis on _transpired_ is a punch in the gut and not just because he actually had caught you crying that one night so many months ago _damnit_ but because that means maybe that wasn’t pretend cuddles and he was actually trying awkwardly to _comfort you._

 

Optimus and Magnus look at each other for a moment, but only a moment, before they motion for the other bots to drop him. He crumbles into an ungraceful heap on the floor.

 

“Place him in stasis cuffs.” Magus says finally. “We’ll keep him in storage until we ping enough remaining autobots to hold an emergency video council.”

 

You don’t know which is less believable: That Starscream, whose record of cowardice is legend, is offering you an escape route at his own expense, or that you’d already resolved not to take it.

 

“ _He’s_ lying.” you say firmly. The seeker looks at you as if you’d grown two heads.

 

“I don’t know why you can’t get it through your techno-organic little skull that _I’m trying to help you_ so you’d do best to _shut up_ before they change their minds!”

 

“No.”

 

He blinks.

 

“I said _no_.” you repeat before he has a chance to question you. “If they get a council together and _actually_   try you you’ll be put to death. And that’s not fair because we both fucked up and it’s both our faults and neither one should be punished without the other and _fuck_ me _I don’t want you to die.”_

 

He says nothing, mouth ajar for several nanoseconds, and it kind of hurts. Hurts because the look on his faceplate is clearly telling you that he’d never been treated this candidly before.

 

“But it’s not….” he trails off. “You didn’t…on purpose.” he seems to be having trouble forming coherent sentences. “I _kidnapped_ you.” he says finally.

 

“And I begged for your aft with _complete_ lucidity.” You reply bitterly. “It takes two to fuck up in this particular capacity but I’m _not_   you so I _don’t_   throw the father of my child under the bus so I can walk free!” you clench your hands into fists. “You came back. Why the _fuck_ did you come back. They’re going to kill you _and you fucking came back.”_

 

Some part of you is aware that you’re terrified, that no words in English or cybertronian that can adequately describe how fucking scared you are because while he'd once ripped the clothes right off your body he's never actually seen you this _naked_ before.

 

“I don’t know if it ever occurred to you” you start, fighting tears. “That I might actually be bothered by the idea of your traitorous aft going offline. Or that maybe I don’t want to even _attempt_ raising your spawn by myself and if you’re gonna just skip out on everything and die then maybe _I’d want in on it!”_ you seethe. “So _no_ you don’t get to just come back and then go off and die _without_ me!”

 

The way he looks at you is reminiscent of the one he‘d given you when he first realized you‘d had the rough equivalent of unprotected sex. Impossibly small and vulnerable and horrified. You don’t blame him. You’re basically saying that you actually _want_ to go down in flames with his stupid ass and while that’s a hundred times more intimate and horrifying than actually saying him you love him it’s also a hundred times easier and so it becomes your ass-backwards way of telling him.

 

He opens his mouth as if to say more but brilliant, clueless, “too-young-to-understand-this-bullshit” Raf plops a screeching, despondent Blackbird onto your lap.

 

“She got pretty upset when I wouldn’t let her eat the spider.” he says, shrugging. “And I can’t get her to calm down.”

 

You want to sarcastically thank him for his ingenious timing, but the ear-piercing shrieking prevents you from doing so. Holy hell you have never _seen_ something so mad. You’d once watched Megatron rip out an entire wall with one servo in his rage and it pales in comparison to the fury this minuscule thing feels for being denied an insect. You begin to panic, mind racing to figure out a way to stop her wailing.

 

“Hello there little one.”

 

She stops screaming, optics impossibly wide as Starscream lowers a talon to brush her face with. She takes the talon in her tiny servo and you’re kind of mad she doesn’t bite it but your heart’s melting too hard for you to care.

 

“I, unfortunately, am your sire.“ he says far too softly, wings drooping. “You deserve better, I know.”

 

You say nothing. Starscream did _not_ jut admit that he‘s a piece of shit, _no way_. You’d be lying if you said you knew how he’d react to the sparkling once she was here, but you’d never expected her to be straight up _kryptonite_ to him.

 

“She’s so small.” He crouches down behind you to get a better look. Your face heats up and you _hate_ that he still has that effect on you.

 

“Ratchet said she’d probably grow up roughly around your size.” you say, totally not enjoying the proximity.

 

“Maybe if the circumstances had been different-” he murmurs “-and we were afforded privacy from prying eyes, I might have enjoyed this.”

 

He doesn’t say anything else and you’re glad for it. Glad because you’re on the edge of a Ratchet-style nuclear meltdown for how much absurdity you could handle in a single conversation.

 

“This is so fucked up.” you lean back against his chassis, feeling the warmth and the humming emanating from his frame. “ _We_ are so fucked up.” you whisper, wishing this perfectly fucked up moment would last forever.

 

Optimus and Ultra Magnus, who had been considerate enough to put some distance between themselves and the perfectly fucked up family, stare disbelieving.

 

“Why- _how_ is it that people come crawling back to Starscream when he’s the one that’s doing the actual crawling?” Magnus asks finally.

 

“I have wondered that myself.” Optimus admits “It may be that there is honesty in his treachery. You are already aware that you will be backstabbed at some point. There’s excitement in the danger but also familiarity. For all the effort he puts into his lies and deception, he is, in a sense, laid bare.”

 

“That is the most elegant way I have ever heard “traitorous garbage” put.”

 

Optimus shrugs. “I do not pretend to fully understand it. And I do not wish to devote more processor power than necessary into doing so.”

 

“You’re not- You’re not actually intending on letting them go free.”

 

“He just attempted to use his own life as a bargaining chip to free the carrier of his sparkling. While I never anticipated _this_ of all things would be his kryptonite, it seems we did indeed find it.”

 

“Kryptonite?”

 

“It is an earth term, from one of their works of literature. A damning weapon that works every time it is applied. “ he pauses, thoughtfully. “It may also be a more appropriate punishment for them _both_   if we allow them to remain with each other.”

 

“I intend no disrespect,” Magnus starts, looking uncomfortable “but that suggestion is far too dangerous for my liking.”

 

“I believe we’ve seen the last of days we could consider Starscream dangerous. He has unintentionally created the worst weapon we could conceivably use against him.” Optimus lets out a disbelieving ex-vent. “And it happens to be a family.”

 


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey look I made a smut sandwich. Two slices of sex with layers of delicious angsty bullshit inside.
> 
> FUCK.

 

 

 

_Screeeeeeeech._

 

“ _Just ignore it.”_ you grit your teeth. _“If you give in now she’ll know it works and then she’ll never stop.”_

 

_Screeeeeeech_

 

Tears sting at the corners of your eyes as you cringe over the console, trying your damndest to ignore the ear-splitting whine. _“She can’t keep it up for that much longer, can she?”_

 

_Screeeeee-_

 

“Primus blessed she’s _doing it again_!”

 

You slam your head down on the control interface in frustration, digging your nails into your scalp as Starscream sweeps the shrieking/screaming/wailing _loud as FUCK_ sparkling off the floor, bouncing it awkwardly in a misguided attempt to get it to _shut up._

 

It’d been nine months since your idiotic affair, and roughly three months since the results of said affair culminated in the arrival of your unintentional science experiment. (Though you actively attempted to block the “arrival” part from your memory). Optimus and Ultra Magnus, in light of Starscream’s unexpected face-heel turn, had initially planned on exiling the three of you to a cybertronian colony several galaxies away.

 

But fortunately for you, Arcee and Jack had come by before the decision had been finalized and sheepishly admitted that they had, in fact, fucked up in an identical fashion. While Magnus was busy recovering from his ensuing processor crash, it was quietly decided that your combined knowledge of inter-species reproduction may be needed. So you’d been allocated to a makeshift offsite laboratory cannibalized from a downed decepticon vessel.

 

“ _Two full stellar cycles.”_ you laugh silently to yourself. _“Good luck with that.”_

 

“I‘m going to assume you had a good reason for not picking her up yourself-” Starscream seethes, bringing you back to the present by dropping the tiny sonic-wave emitting bundle onto your lap. _oh god my fucking knees._ “-Because I could _hear_ her from halfway across the ship.”

 

“I do have a good reason.” you snarl, peering out at him from under a carpet of hair, head still firmly planted on the interface. “I was trying to teach her to _stop screeching.”_

 

“By letting her blow her vocal processor out?”

 

“By _ignoring her.”_ you spit, fighting the urge to rip your hair out. “She’s fine. She’s not hungry or cold she’s doing it because she wants attention. Which _you_ just gave her.”

 

“I had to do _something_ before she started shattering glass.”

 

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration.” you roll your eyes, only to see that several of the vials you kept tissue samples in had _exploded_ and Blackbird was now attempting to shove the splattered contents into her mouth. “Aw _fuck.”_

 

Starscream laughs. You shoot him the dirtiest look you can conceivably contort your face into.

 

“Get fragged asshole.”

 

“Now that you mention it…” and you jump as a cold servo snakes down the back of your shirt. “Can I be reasonably certain we’re commuting on the same wavelength?”

 

Your breath catches in your throat. “ _Are you fucking kidding me”_ and when you feel him press his helm into the groove between your neck and your shoulder you don’t need visual confirmation to know he’s reconciled his mass down to human size.

 

“It’s been months,” he murmurs, ex-venting hot against your skin.

 

“Y-yeah w-well-” you swallow hard, trying not to stutter. “You’re gonna have to back off until we get her into recharge.” you say, unceremoniously setting the squirming sparkling back onto the ground with a gentle “clink.”

 

He growls in irritation. “That could take _hours._ Couldn‘t you get one of the human children to watch her again? _”_

 

“You can’t be serious.” you sigh, rolling your eyes. “I’m like 99% positive Miko’s the one that taught her how to shriek like that.”

 

“We can always deactivate our audio receptors.” and fuckfuck _fuck_ he punctuates that with a soft bite against your neck, enough to bruise, but not bleed.

 

You try, and fail to calm your racing heart, fail to ignore the inviting hum of his frame pressed against your back, and fail _spectacularly_ to stifle a gasp as he slips his other servo down the front of your shirt _sweet jesus._

 

“I-I dunno…” you start shakily. 

 

“If you honestly aren’t interested-” he cuts in, retracting his servos from the confines of your clothing. “I’m certain I can still ping Shockwave.”

 

Oh.

 

Hell.

 

No.

 

You jump up from your chair so fast your leg gets caught and you fall flat on your ass. Blackbird laughs. That’s _adorable._ Starscream laughs. That’s _infuriating._

 

“Fuck you.” you swear under your breath as you make a mad dash for the com controls on the other side of the room.

 

“ _Now_   you’re getting it!” You ignore him and slam down the com button.

 

“Raf? Raf? You there? This is kind of an emergency.” _This is totally an emergency._

 

Silence. Then static.

 

“I was just leaving.” Raf replies after ten agonizing seconds. “What do you need?”

 

_Shit._ you grit your teeth. “Is Miko there?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Can she watch Blackbird for a little bit? Just like maybe an hour?” _Half an hour, fifteen minutes anything please.”_

 

Another pause. You white-knuckle your grip on the console.

 

“She says sure, but I gotta warn you, she’s practicing guitar and her and Bulkhead have tickets to a Slash Monkey concert tonight.”

 

You weigh your options: Interfacing with Starscream or retaining functional eardrums.

 

You shoot a glance over your shoulder. The seeker leans back against the console next to you, legs crossed, wings fanned out, smoldering red optics narrowed, perfectly _punchable_ smirk spread across his face.

 

Functional eardrums were _never_ an option. _Hot damn._

 

 

“Fire up the ground bridge.” you say, doing your best not to outright _pant_   through the intercom. “I’m bringing her over.”

 

 

_***************************_

 

“How long do we have?” he asks you nonchalantly as the glow of the ground bridge fizzles out of existence behind you.

 

“An hour, hour and a half tops.” you reply nervously. “I told them we were doing some high level radiation testing with the protoforms and didn’t want her exposed.”

 

“Clever. Seems I’ve rubbed off on you. In more ways than-”

 

“-Already made that joke.” you cut in, turning to hide your thoroughly flushed face. “Speaking of, can we _please_ stop using Shockwave as foreplay?”

 

“Now why would I do that?” he purrs, cupping your chin with his servo, forcing you to look him in the eye. “Does the mere _notion_ of me burying my spike inside _him_ bother you that much?”

 

Great. Hundreds of light-years away and your favorite one eyed giant purple motherfucker is _still_ perfectly capable of enraging you. _Fuck you douche bag._

 

“That depends,” you smile wryly, leaning back onto a (mercifully blank) portion of the console. “On how upset you get at the idea of _his_ spike inside _m-”_

 

You don’t even get to finish your sentence before Starscream slams you backwards against the console, snarling as he forces his glossa into your mouth, using both servos to pin your wrists down against the metal. He grinds his hips against yours and you automatically rope your legs around his waist, trying your damnest not to laugh at the absurdity.

 

_Thank you douche bag._

 

He breaks away and you finally have a moment to breath, but find yourself incapable of doing so, because _jealous_ Starscream is the absolute hottest version of Starscream there is. The mixture of unbridled rage and possessiveness in his optics could fucking _end_ you, and you absolutely intend on _letting_ it.

 

“You, dear human,-” he rumbles, low and gravely. “-are going to _sincerely_   pay for that.”

 

There’s no gentleness this time and part of you is glad for it. Icy talons shear through your clothes effortlessly(through your favorite shirt _damnit_ ) and he bites down between your shoulder again, this time _hard,_ hard enough to draw blood. You cry out, unconsciously arching your back and bucking your hips against his. You try to reach out, to loop your arms around his shoulders for support, but he reacts at the first sign of movement and pins your arms over your head, rendering you immobile.

 

“Can’t move? What a pity.” he purrs, looming over you, the thrum of his frame deafening. You struggle, but to no avail. Desperate, dripping wet and trapped, you almost resign yourself to getting fragged like a helpless rag doll against the console once more.

 

_Almost._

 

With your legs roped around his waist and your lower back slightly suspended, you have the tiniest shred of leverage. You bite you lip, holding you breath as you hear the familiar clink of the plating falling away and the warm, pulsing tip of his spike against you.

 

_Now._

 

You redirect every iota of strength you have into your upper back and spring forward, the force of which is just enough to knock the unsuspecting seeker aft-backwards onto the floor, taking you with him. He blinks, opens his mouth, fully intending to raise hell but before he has time to react you move into position, one hand on his shoulder, one on his chassis for support, and impale yourself onto his spike.

 

_Fuck._ You’d gone too fast.  _Way_   too fast. You find yourself gasping for breath, trying, and failing to move yourself.

 

He eyes you warily for a few moments, amused. “What’s wrong? Too much for you to handle?”

 

“S-shut up!” you growl through gritted teeth, refusing to admit your error. You begin to work your hips up and down slowly, pausing at every other inch and holy shit it’s _working_ and it’s starting to hurt _good_ instead of just hurting.

 

“That was bold, even for you.” he hums contentedly and sweet primus the face he’s making-optics half closed, smug lopsided grin-is fucking _art. “_ But let’s move this along, shall we?”

 

He takes your hips into his servos, talons digging into your ass, and offers you leverage, lifting you up and crashing you back down against him, and your shaking legs are infinitely grateful. You feel a familiar heat burning beneath your stomach as your thrusts meet in a fever pitch, and you bite your lip, close you eyes and throw your head up anticipating climax.

 

“Look at me.”

 

You open your eyes.

 

“I want you look at me when you overload.” Starscream snarls, voice labored with strain. _“Don’t look away.”_

 

You can only nod your agreement as he forces you back down onto his spike, _fast, faster_ and you summon every bit of willpower you have to lock optics with him as overload _tears_ through your body and you come undone around him.

 

Not a second later he meets you, hissing and digging his talons into your thighs as his spike pulses inside you. Somewhere between the static there’s an indecipherable version of your name as he overloads, spilling fluid into you.

 

You remain upright for a moment, wondering if you’ll ever have the chance to see high-and-mighty Starscream _underneath_   you ever again, but your shaking limbs have had enough, and you collapse against his chassis.

 

There’s an uncomfortably long, unearthly silence broken only by desperate breathing. You lay there, mind racing, wondering which one of you would diffuse the tension with a brick joke or one-liner.

 

“You’re beautiful.”

 

He’s not even looking at you when he says it, but gazing wearily at the ceiling. Your heart stops. You clap your hand over your mouth, lay your head in the crook between his neck and his chassis, and furiously fight back happy tears.

 

“ _Love you too, asshole.”_

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeeaaaaah I just can't leave this thing alone.
> 
> Other half of the smut sandwich to follow because I'm not the kind of asshole to give people dissembled sandwiches I swear.

“But he _hit_ me!”

 

You close your eyes and blow out an exhausted breath. “Did you hit him first?”

 

“Yeah but _he started it.”_

 

“Started what?”

 

“The fight.”

 

“What fight?”

 

_Screeeeeeeeee_

 

 _Oh my god this again._ you grab Blackbird’s shoulders, now nearly level with your own. “ _Why_ are you screaming?”

 

“Cause I’m _mad.”_ the diminutive seeker squeaks, bird-like face scrunched in rage.

 

“There’s other ways to tell me that you’re mad.” you say slowly, rapidly depleting your patience reserves. “When you scream like that it explodes mommy’s brain a little. Do you _want_ mommy’s brain to explode?”

 

She tilts her head in consideration. “No.”

 

“Then use words.” you say calmly “ _Tell_ me what happened.”

 

She inhales sharply.

 

“Tailgate threw dirt at me and said he wanted to fight so I punched him and he punched me and then he _threw dirt at me_ when I said I wanted to stop and then he hit me again and he said he _hates me!”_

 

“ _Aw shit he actually did start it.”_ you frown. Arcee and Jack’s accident was by no means shy, but he wasn’t mean spirited either, and stirring shit up wasn’t his default personality. At least that’s what Raf and Ratchet, who usually got stuck on sparkling-sitting duty, had told you.

 

Looks like you’re gonna have to figure this one out on your own. “What happened before he threw the dirt?”

 

“He said I was shiny.”

 

You blink. “Shiny?”

 

“Yeah. “ she nods eagerly. “Then he tried to grab my wings but I said no and ran away from him and _that’s_ when he threw dirt.”

 

_Oh._

 

You feel an enormous, stupid grin spread over your face.

 

“He doesn’t hate you hun,” you say warmly, patting her on the top of her helm. “Actually, it sounds like he _likes_ you.”

 

She stares back disbelievingly, optics wide.

 

“Why would he want to fight if he liked me?”

 

Starscream chooses that exact moment to come through the door. Your eye twitches involuntarily at all the hilarious, dysfunctional implications.

 

“Don’t ask.”

 

 

“Hey!” Blackbird scampers over to her sire’s pede and begins to tug on it enthusiastically. “Tailgate _hit_ me!”

 

 

He raises an eyebrow. “Did you hit him back?”

 

 

“No.” She pouts. “he was too fast and...and… _dirt!”_

 

 

“Next time-” he starts, kneeling down to her level. “wait until he’s not looking, then kick him in the back of the head.”

 

You fight the urge to slam your own head against the wall, feeling stupid for expecting anything different. But still, _what the fuck._

 

 

“When the last time you fed your pet, er….’octopus’, was it?” he asks, getting back to his feet.

 

“Her name is SampulCee.” she corrects him, matter-of-factly.

 

 

“Yes, well, it’s escaped it’s tank again. Go find it and put it back before it dries out.”

 

 

Blackbird resumes her trademark screeching, but thankfully takes off down the corridor before you have time to develop a tumor on top of your migraine.

 

 

“That-” you start slowly as the door closes automatically after her. “Was _terrible_ advice.”

 

 

“You and I _both_ know that they do dry out.” he says, scowling. “So unless you want to run out in the middle of the night to fish out a replacement while she’s in recharge _again_ she‘d do well to look after it.”

 

 

“Haha.” you laugh icily. “I was referring to bit about kicking others in the back of the head.”

 

 

“It’s kept me alive for this long, hasn’t it?”

 

 

You open and close your mouth several times, unable to come up with a retort.

 

 

“Precisely.” he replies smugly, making his way over to your desk “She needs to learn to defend herself, especially if that autobot spawn continues to instigate fights.”

 

 

“He’s _not_ instigating fights.” you roll your eyes. “He’s just got a stupid crush on her. That’s all.”

 

He freezes mid-step. You wonder briefly when, if ever, you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut.

 

“ _WHAT?!”_

 

You can only watch bewildered as Starscream, enraged by this perceived threat, proceeds to lose his shit in a manner you’re actually _not_ accustomed to.

 

“I knew it. _Knew it!_ That little two wheeler _wench_ still hates me but she can’t attack me herself, oh no, so she sends her spawn after _my_ sparkling-”

 

 _Haha holy shit is this actually happening._ “Calm down. You’re freaking out over nothing.” you say, secretly hoping said freakout is nowhere near over.

 

“Nothing? _Nothing?!”_ goddamn the fury he’s emitting could power a small solar system. “Let him try it. Just _try_ laying a servo on her again and I’ll-”

 

“You’ll what?” you cut in, failing to stifle laughter. “Kick him? He’s the size of your pede.”

 

“ _Yes,_ but-”

 

“-But if you want to give Arcee a good excuse to _actually kill you_ that might work.” you say, wiping tears from the corner of your eyes. “This isn’t even a problem. They’re still throwing dirt at each other.”

 

He growls under his breath, but his wings droop slightly, and he sighs in resignation. “Mind explaining that slag-eating grin you’re wearing?”

 

 _It’s because that was fucking adorable._ You cough into your hand and straighten your face. “Why’d you come in here anyways?”

 

“Ah yes, about that,” _diversion successful_ “I was thinking-”

 

“Hilarious.”

 

He narrows his optics. “Go frag yourself.”

 

You raise an eyebrow suggestively. “You know, I was just thinking-”

 

“Yes yes,” he waves a servo dismissively “try to contain your spontaneous overloads for a moment would you? I have an idea.”

 

“Pertaining to _what,_ exactly?” You reply bitterly, silently assessing your chances of sneaking away to actually follow up on his suggestion.

 

“The binding code for the genetic sequences.”

 

 _That_ catches your attention long enough to pull your mind out of the berth. “ _What_ code? Nothing we tried binds anything.”

 

“Exactly. We’re working from scratch, and we don’t need to be.” he clicks his talons together thoughtfully. “Shockwave wrote one ages ago to clone predicons.”

 

“Yeah. _Predicons.”_ you emphasize with air quotes. “Our C.N.A. is too divergent from theirs for compilation to work.”

 

“Yes but it would provide us with a framework.” he leans back against the wall, lazily regarding the ceiling. “It would only be a matter of whittling down the variables until we produced a working model.”

 

Your jaw drops. That….actually makes perfect sense _holy shit._

 

“We…were just throwing things against the wall to see what would stick,” you say slowly. “When there was _already_ a wall with stuff sticking to it.”

 

“You see?” he smirks at your dumbfounded expression.

 

“Yeah, but we don’t have Shockwave’s code. He took all of his research with him when you two bailed.” and _wow_ that still stings. _Still remember that you slimly piece of shit._

 

He looks the tiniest bit deflated for a split-second, and you feel better. “Yes, but we can still r _etrieve_ the code.”

 

“How?”

 

 

“I can still ping him.”

 

 

You freeze.

 

 

No. Nononono _NO._

 

 

“You’re joking right?” you ask, _plead_ , more like it.

 

 

“Why would I joke about something like that?”

 

 

“I thought you were just trying to get me to interface with you!”

 

 

“Primus, does the thought of that one eyed purple _oaf_ get you lubricated _that quickly?!”_

 

 

“Oh my god.” you clutch your head in exasperation. “YOU brought him up. Not me. _YOU.”_

 

“Ha! Like you never stared at his aft when he walked out the door! I _saw_ how your optical array lit up when he offered to be you interfacing partner!”

 

“Oh yeah?” you snarl. “I had access to your computer. I know the nine months I was too sick to interface you kept his blueprints on your desktop. I’m not an _idiot!”_

 

He looks taken aback for a moment, visibly shaken, since blueprints are the rough cybertronian equivalent to back-ally, gonzo, amateur facial abuse porn, and _totally_ not something you leave out on your desktop for your consort to see unless you’re an unobservant fuck. Or Starscream.

 

Since he’s the latter, however, he doesn’t waste more than half a second looking disgusted with himself. “Don’t you turn this back on me-”

 

“I’m _not.”_ you growl, frustrated beyond reconciliation. This fight is stupid and pointless and has gone on for way too long and you’re done. You’re so fucking _done._ “Alright. Fine. I’d tap that one-eyed, purple, _creepy,_ perfectly sculpted aft. _You happy_?!”

 

He’s not. He’s totally _not_ and his face contorts with rage but you don’t give him the chance to sling furious albeit creative euphemisms for “whore” at you. “But _so would you._ What are we gonna do about it? Groundbridge over to his offsite laboratory and proposition him for a threeway interfacing session?”

 

That’s not a question. That’s absolutely not a _question_ , but when he narrows his optics and his expression changes to convey both curiosity and want _,_ you realize that it’s not a _joke_ either.

 

It’s a suggestion. One you both had just wordlessly, simultaneously agreed to.

 

“Even if we _were_ to attempt initiating an encounter of that nature, I highly doubt he’d ever agree to it.” Starscream says finally, wings drooping slightly.

 

“Y-yeah,” you nod, feeling strangely let down. Which makes no sense because this _douche bag_ you’re talking about here. You might be into science. Starscream might be into science, but Shockwave is _really into science_ and the notion of interfacing for any reason other than experimentation likely never bliped through his processor. Hell, he’s probably the only giant alien robot that actually fucks _like a robot._ “Besides, I’ve never heard anything come out of his vocal processor that wasn’t a numerical figure or statistic. That’s gotta get old _fast_ in the berthroom.”

 

“Oh believe me, you don’t know the _half_ of it.” Starscream starts, imitating his colleague in a mocking tone “Overload imminent within next five kliks. Chance of simultaneous overload below twenty-five percent.” Primus, if he’d just _shut up_ it would’ve bumped those odds up to fifty at _least-”_ he stops mid-sentence upon seeing your expression, which is undoubtedly some delightful mix of disgust, intrigue, and _what the in the actual fuck._

 

“Once!” he stresses, a hint of panic in his voice. “We interfaced _once._ Three stellar cycles before the battle of Tyger Pax. So before you go accusing me of ‘facing around while you were heaving your reserve tanks out it was _millions_ of years ago. Likely before your species was even sentient!”

 

“I’m not accusing you of anything!” you shoot back. “Hell I’m not even _jealous.”_

 

 

“Then _what_ was that look for?!”

 

 

“I…uh…”you trail off, _not_ trying to think back millions of years and three stellar cycles ago, _not_ trying to imagine scenarios in which the mechs had managed to stop arguing long enough to start touching each other, and _totally not_ picturing one bending the other over a control interface, spikes being stroked, spikes being buried, cooling fans kicking on, hot ex-venting-O _h god. Nope._ Not even a little.

 

“I’m _really_ turned on right now-” you admit sheepishly. “-and kinda pissed I was born a few millions years too late to actually _see_ that.”

 

And now it’s _his_ turn to give you a look, an infuriating, sultry ‘your-knees-aren’t-working-and I-fucking-know-it’ look.

 

“Not necessarily.”

 

And there go your knees. You slump onto the ground, staring up at him with, wide, disbelieving eyes.

 

“Do…Do you have the coordinates for his laboratory?” you ask awkwardly, heart racing.

 

“I do.” the seeker replies. “We can groundbridge there.”

 

“Well then,” you start slowly. “We should probably go get the code.”

 

You’re interrupted by a long, shrill shriek emanating from the other end of the ship, followed by wailing, wailing that’s punctuated with half sobbed out words like “SampulCee!” and “dried up!” and “NOOOOO!”

 

You exchange an exhausted look with your consort.

 

“ _After_ we retrieve another aquatic cephalopod?” he suggests.

 

“Yeah.” you agree. “After we get another fucking octopus.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eight months later and I finally finish the other half of the last chapter. Merry Christmas.
> 
> Alright. So despite my best efforts this stupid fucking fic developed a plot so this isn't the last chapter. There's probably gonna be like four or five more. Or something. Goddamnit I don't know.
> 
> So timeline wise, this takes place after the end of the series but before the "Predicons Rising" movie. So Optimus hasn't found a way to kill himself saving everyone yet, Megatron hasn't come back from the dead and the autobots are still presumably dividing their time between earth and cybertron while rebuilding and whatnot.
> 
> I'm probably gonna come back and nitpick at this thing but I've been up all night and really too tired to fix anything right now.
> 
> Shoutout to Rockinmuffin, who helped me realize that Shockwave is actually pretty hot what the fuck.

“I still say you’re stalling.”

 

“As already I explained to you about a _hundred_ times, she’s _far_ too overzealous teach right now. She’ll just end up injuring herself.”

 

“You’re just being overprotective.“ you sigh, emptying your net into a water filled cooler. You‘re parked on a pier, somewhere along the east coast, in a (mostly) abandoned fishing town. You‘d both been here once before, the first time “SampulCee“ had saw fit to end her miserable captive life and expire in an air duct. Given, last time had been under the cover of night, and you hadn‘t had to worry about being spotted. Today, however, two fishermen watch in absolute bewilderment while you argue loudly with a parked f-16, shaking excess ocean water off your frog suit.

 

“I caught her trying to scan a toaster. A goddamn _toaster._ You tell me that’s not an identity crisis waiting to happen.” you peel the more reluctant of the two octopi off the bottom of the net, wincing as it attempts to wrap it’s slimly tentacles around your hand. _Gross._ “Somebody needs to teach her how to turn into something that doesn’t plug into the wall, and as much as I’d love to be the one to do that, I can’t. Because I can’t fly.”

 

“ _You’re_ one to talk.” he scoffs. ”You were frightened to leave her to her own devices for even a _brief_ excursion.”

 

“That’s because she’s _seven_.” you spit in defense, snapping the cooler shut. “Who knows what kinda crap she could get into alone.”

 

“Yes, well, she’s also ten times as intelligent as an immature member of your species at that age. She’ll be _fine._ Plus, as I already explained, we couldn’t risk bridging her over to the autobot’s base and having them asking questions about where we’re going.”

 

“That‘s another thing.” you pry the goggles off your face. “This still feels kind of…wrong, going behind their backs like this. “

 

“Please, indulge me, what part of jumping backwards through hoops to save an endangered species strikes you as _wrong?”_ he sneers.

 

“Gee, I dunno, maybe the part about collaborating with a fugitive war criminal who’s never stood trial?” you snap back. “We’re _supposed_ to be the good guys now, or at least _act_ like it.”

 

He laughs, _barks_ more like it “I believe there’s an earth expression involving a kettle that would befit this situation. Make no mistake, the only reason I’m allowed to _live_ is because Prime knows full well how pitifully few of our kind are left.”

 

“You’re _really_ not helping.”

 

“Then allow me to put this in perspective for you : If _we_ don’t provide a solution to this problem, Prime will no doubt find some means of fixing it that involves off lining himself. And don’t think he _won’t_ , he’s a martyr down to the very pit of his spark.”

 

You spend a moment running what you knew about Optimus through your mind, recalling the number of instances relayed to you by the other members of his team where he had tried his _damndest_ to die for any number of noble causes. You sigh.

 

“Alright, fine.” you agree. “In the interest of keeping Prime from finding some creative means of killing himself, I suppose we can justify this.“ you heave the oxygen tanks off your shoulders and gesture towards the cooler. “Now, please tell me you have a storage compartment to put this in, because I’m not exactly looking forward to going mach three with a container of sea water on my lap.”

 

“Just give it here, I should have room for it in my subspace.”

 

“Subspace?” you ask, whilst trying reach the zipper of your frog suit, inconveniently located just out of reach between your shoulder blades “What if you forget about them?”

 

“ _Please._ I’ll have your know my processor hold memory files from back before your species had crawled out of the ocean.”

 

“Yeah? Remember that pizza you left in there, back when I was still eating organic food? The one you pulled out _last week?_ “

 

“Leave it to _you_ to bring up the lone exception.” he growls

 

“It was in there for _eight. years._ We discovered not one, not _ten_ , but _twenty six_ new strains of bacteria that were as of yet unknown to _both_ of our species. And nothing, I repeat, _nothing_ killed them save _incineration.”_ You shake your head, unzipping the scuba suit. “Can you imagine if we’d manufactured a bio weapon out of them? Forget earth, we’d have the fucking _galaxy_ on it’s knees.”

 

There a brief silence in which you hop around like an idiot trying to shake the last leg of the suit off of your foot.

 

“Thinking like _that_ is precisely why I made you my consort.”

 

You trip over the cooler and land ass backwards on the hard, unforgiving wood of the pier. A sharp, cackling laugh resounds from the jet beside you. You let out an exasperated growl, bringing your hands up to cover your beat red face. You _hate_ that he can still do that to you. _Hate it._

 

“F-fuck you.”

 

“I suggest we hold off on that for now.” he say in a clearly amused voice, popping open the hatch of his cockpit to allow you in. “We’re going to need our stamina, if everything goes according to plan.”

 

**************

“As I explained to you before, the C.N.A is too divergent for compilation to be successful.”

 

“And as _I_ explained before, we’re interested in using it as a framework, _not_ as is.”

 

You’d met in the remnants of Shockwave’s offsite laboratory, surprisingly still functional once the rubble had been cleared. You’re still not entirely sure _how_ exactly Starscream managed to convince him to rendezvous with you both, and you don’t ask. Plausible deniability is your friend and you figure the less you know about whatever your favorite one-eyed giant purple motherfucker is up to these days, the better.

 

And that’s how you find yourself, in a scene painfully reminiscent of your days in captivity, dividing your attention equally between the scientific banter traded between the two mechs, and trying to change Shockwave’s master password to yet another variation of “douche.”

 

“Your attempts to change the password, while humorous, are ineffectual.” he says, as if on telepathic cue “I have categorically blacklisted over five thousand earth euphemisms for orifice cleaner.”

 

You let out an indignant huff, trying to pretend you hadn‘t come up with “vagina expugnent” on the flight here and are remiss you won’t have an opportunity to use it, but find yourself thrown off by a gentle nudging at the back of your legs.

 

It’s a predicon. A _small_ one. You really shouldn’t be surprised by it’s appearance, considering how closely both Skylynx and Darksteel kept themselves plastered to their creators side and were currently skulking around the outside of the lab, but you still find yourself recoiling from it, heart slamming into your ribcage at having one so close. You’d personally never had any negative experiences with them, but the tales of relentless abuse Starscream had shared with you during Predaking’s time on board have left you more than a bit leery.

 

This one, however, is decidedly less threatening. Light blue, avian in appearance, with wide, curious yellow optics. It looks young _, really_ young.

 

“They are amiable.” Shockwave says, not bothering to look away from one of the charred, cracked, but still apparently functional terminal stations he’s currently engrossed in, much to the seeker’s irritation, who lets out an disbelieving scoff, probably at hearing the words “predicon” and “amiable” used in the same sentence.

 

You raise an eyebrow, but cautiously extend a hand out towards the creature, who nuzzles it softly, feeling your heart slow down considerably. “Are they, now?”

 

“She.” he corrects you. “I gleaned most of her C.N.A. from one of the samples you had left on your desk following your departure.”

 

You scratch the (comparably) tiny metal creature under it’s break, grinning like an idiot as it emits a soft, whirring coo. “Does she have a name?”

 

“Sample D.” he says. “However, since she originated from your samples, I have recently changed her designation to “Douche.”

 

You feel oddly touched.

 

Starscream growls, low in his throat. “Forgive me, if I’m having a hard time wrapping my processor around why you saw fit to bring those abominations with you.”

 

“An added security measure.” Shockwave says bluntly. “I understand your loyalties have shifted following our separation after Lord Megatron’s demise.”

 

He rolls his optics. “You know as well as I do that our work is faction neutral. Besides, do you really think so little of me that I’d turn you in to win brownie points from the autobots? Why, I’m _insulted.”_

 

“You have sold out those on friendlier terms with you than I.” he makes a motion as if to turn his helm towards you, but thinks better of it. It’s subtle, and you wouldn’t have caught it if you weren’t shamelessly ogling his backside. You feel a familiar, sharp twist in your stomach as you shove some particularly unpleasant memories to the back of your mind.

 

“Yes, well, that was a….different time.” Starscream’s wings droop slightly, shooting a lighting fast look of unease your way. You feel the hair on the back of your neck bristle, but you keep your mouth shut. You’d have to be an even _bigger_ idiot to start another petty argument, considering Shockwave was the object of a million and one even _pettier_ arguments and roping him into a threeway was half the reason you came here to begin with.

 

So you bite your tongue, keep your mouth closed, and preoccupy yourself with trying to (gently) shoo Douche outside to join her kin, because as much as you doubt Shockwave’s ability to divulge the cyber birds and the bees with any degree of sensitivity to his creations you don’t want to be responsible for giving her a live demonstration.

 

“I assure you Shockwave, even if I _were_ to turn you in, I stand to gain pathetic little from it.” The seeker continues to assure him. “If we had an ulterior motive, would we come here alone?”

 

“If you had only desired the code, you would not have arranged a meeting.” he returns flatly. “It would have been easier to arrange to have it sent.”

 

“Ah, yes, that brings us back to the _other_ reason we came to visit.” and you can’t help but notice that sudden, sharp drop in his voice as he rumbles, that languid, venomous tone that he uses when he wants something from you, and is _positive_ that he’s going to _get_ it.

 

“And that would be?” Shockwave asks, having finally torn his single, glowing optic away from the screen to regard the seeker suspiciously.

 

“An educational experience.” Starscream purrs, inches away from Shockwave’s audial receptors. “For as far integrated as “____” has become among our kind-” and he narrows his optics, two burning white hot coals, in a way that stops your lungs from working. “-She’s never had the opportunity to observe cybertronian interfacing.”

 

The whining, desperate air hunger sets in before you finally manage to convince your body to _inhale,_ air itself somehow burning as you suck it in. In a perfect display of human weakness you find yourself collapsing to your knees as Starscream, no doubt emboldened from your shameless display of arousal, throws Shockwave against the keyboard, and in a scene you’d burn into your brain for millennia to come, claims the underside of his helm with his mouth.

 

He’s kissing him. Oh god he’s _kissing him_ and he doesn’t even have a _mouth_. You watch transfixed, and drooling, _definitely drooling,_ as the seeker maneuvers the cyclops against the control panel, moving his mouth down to his neck cabling and biting down just hard enough to emit sparks. He grips his thick, metallic thighs in his servos as he hoists them around his waist, murmuring incoherent cybertronian as he does so.

 

His aft collides with the keyboard portion of the console, and you watch, amused as the entry field fills up with gibberish. You know just enough cybertronian to read the rough equivalent of “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGJFKFJKFJKFJFKJF” filling up the screen, and part of you wants to run up and hit _send_ while the two are too occupied to notice, but you’re pretty sure you’re legs are verifiable jelly, and won’t carry you that far. Actually, you’re pretty sure you’re too busy stripping your clothes off, too busy biting your lip and shoving your hand between your thighs to make it _anywhere._

 

You collapse against the ground, your body an undulating heap as you work your fingers inside your slick, velvety folds, watching the two mechs grind feverishly against each other in a shower of sparks. Starscream snarls, and you smell burning metal and ozone as he scraps his talons along Shockwaves thigh, electing a low, static filled groan, and _already_ you’re close, _so close._ You grit your teeth, close your eyes, and throw back your head, and oh god if he’d just _make that sound again_ you could go gun’s blazing over the edge.

 

“Stop.” comes the cold, calculating demand, and you can feel your heart drop into your stomach as your building orgasm fizzles out of existence.

 

“ _Stop?!”_ Starscream growls, dangerously off kilter. “Stop _why?!”_

 

“I do not wish to proceed-” and your breath hitches a second time as you watch that single, scorching optic’s gaze on your body. “-Without involving your consort.”

 

Silence. You swallow hard, your heartbeat roaring in your ears, eyes glued to the seeker, watching his expression changed from furious, confused, amused, and finally, that scheming, wolfish grin you’d come to love.

 

“Of course.” he relinquishes his hold on Shockwave’s legs with a resounding _clang_ to make his way towards you. “Though, you must understand, that if you wish to play with her, you’ll need to make certain _modifications?_ ”

 

“I am fully capable of mass conversion.” Shockwave asserts, vocals distorted through throaty, breathy ex-vents.

 

“Good. Then follow my lead.” before your very eyes Starscream collapses in on himself in a whirr of clinking, shifting metal plates before he stands ten feet tall before you. Small enough to interface without killing you, tall enough to dominate you like the mouse you are.

 

And you feel so very mouse like before him as he struts towards you, scalding red eyes taking in your every movement like the bird of prey he is.

 

There’s no suitable animal euphemism for Shockwave, so incredibly alien and _other_ , only the faintest suggestions of human masculinity in his frame and voice. His transformation is far from seamless, and he seems to have some degree of difficulty reconciling his gargantuan self down to nigh human proportions, but he nonetheless manages to shrink himself down to a third of his height. Some far off portion of your brain questions your sanity at finding him attractive, but you shove it back without a second thought. There’s at least one other person in the galaxy that shares your opinion, and he’s every bit as hellbent as you are on fragging this mechanical eldritch abomination into next week.

 

You find your lungs refusing to function for the second time that day as the two mechs corner you, finding yourself scooting back up on the console (and _damn_ do you need to find better places to frag), find yourself torn between the seeker’s smug leer and the cyclop’s direct, unnerving gaze.

 

“Well don’t just _stand_ there.” Starscream begins, rolling his eyes. “Start _touching_ each other.”

 

You need no further encouragement.

 

You lunge at him, throwing your arms around his shoulders and hooking your legs around his waist as you mimic Starscream’s behavior from earlier and press your lips against the underside of his helm. Starscream threads his own arms around the mech’s waist, biting at his audial receptors and forcing him forward to grind against his aft, caging you under Shockwave’s frame in the process.

 

Shockwave initially seems to be at somewhat of a loss at exactly what do with you, but as you continue to run your hands over every inch of his frame you can reach at, digging your fingers into seams between his plating he begins to take initiative and moves his servo down to cup your ass, giving it an experimental squeeze. You squeak in surprise, muffled with your lips scraping the side of his helm, but find yourself going ridged when you feel cold, slithering _somethings_ winding around your exposed skin.

 

Cables, smooth, silvery, extending from a panel within the palm of his servo. You recognize them as the same ones that had forcibly implanted the neural diodes when you had first arrived aboard the Nemesis, and immediately balk, jerking away and scooting backwards.

 

“They have uses beyond implantation of medical devices.” Shockwave says, as if on telepathic cue.

 

You crane your head to look at Starscream for confirmation.

 

“They do, I assure you.” he says, and you feel yourself relax. Even if things took a turn for the violent at some point during this encounter, you trusted that between the two of you, you could figure out a means of escaping quickly, so long as you were both on the same page.

 

And that’s when you realize, heart skidding to a screeching halt, that you _actually trust Starscream._

 

You’ll have to ponder the ramifications of that later, however, as the cables waste no time gliding over your body, several squeezing your breasts gently, others snaking their way down between your hips and, after a few experimental flicks and tugs, force themselves into you. _Fuck._ You cry out, arching your back as your body involuntarily constricts around them.

 

Shockwave moans, low, gravely, his optic visibly dimming. You’re not sure if it’s from your reaction to the cables, or because Starscream has uncovered his valve panel and teases him relentlessly while nibbling on his neck cabling and _fuck_ just the sight of that sends your body convulsing again, a humiliating, breathy mewl escaping your mouth.

 

“She is…certainly capable of generating…some fascinating noises.” Shockwave notes with considerable difficulty through heated ex-vents.

 

“Isn’t she? Though if I recall correctly, so are you.” Starscream hums, amused, circling a talon around the outer rim of his valve torturously slow. “Primus you’re _soaking._ How long has it been since you last interfaced?”

 

“It was approximately-” and what you’d identify, hadn’t you known better, as a full blown whore moan, escapes Shockwave processor, though several octaves lower. “-Three days before the battle at Tyger Pax.”

 

“ _What?!”_

 

You can only assume that Starscream, in his surprise at this revelation, had pressed his digits far too quickly into his valve, because it has the ripple effect of forcing Shockwave to lurch forward, causing the cables to involuntarily constrict around your breasts and delve farther back within you. “F- _fuck!”_ you feel your eyes water as you’re pushed to the precipice again.

 

“You mean to tell me, you haven’t been with another mech, _anyone else_ , since me?” he asks, dumbfounded.

 

_There’s going to be no living with him now._

 

“I was unable… to reasonably….accommodate the activity.” Shockwave returns through fits of static, likely because the seeker has busied the servo not preoccupied with scissoring his valve to sliding open his interface panel and freeing his painfully pressurized spike. Dark fuchsia with violet biolights and a slight upwards curve. While Starscream’s is longer, his is decidedly thicker, and you once again find yourself doubting your body’s ability to accommodate what should in all seriousness be legally classified as _weapons._

 

“Maybe,” Starscream muses, reaching around to wrap his servo firmly around the member and giving it a firm tug. Shockwave jerks forward, the cables constrict again, and you find yourself _thrashing_ beneath them. _Close, so close._ “Or maybe, just _maybe-”_ and he accentuates each “ _maybe”_ with another firm pump. “-I short circuited your interfacing array so _badly_ , I _ruined_ you for other mechs?”

 

The cables constrict a third time, and you go over the edge, tears in the corners of your eyes as the heat beneath your stomach bursts, and you ride out the aftershocks in a writhing, tangled heap.

 

“An…illogical…conclusion…” Shockwave manages between breathy ex-vents.

 

“So you say, Shockwave, but the fact remains that you _could_ have interfaced, and you _didn’t._ And that leads me to the conclusion-” and he leans in against his audial receptor, and you briefly wonder if that deadly, rumbling purr has the same effect on Shockwave as it does you. “-That you _missed_ me.”

 

You are simultaneously terrified and aroused beyond belief at the prospect of millions of years worth of sexual frustration being let out on you. _In_ you, more likely, because it’s looking more and more like Shockwave gets to be the filling in this interspecies sandwich, and you’re the bottom slice. Starscream has removed his digits from the other mech’s valve, servo pressed against the small of his back to hold him in place while he guides his fully pressurized spike to his valve. Shockwave slowly withdraws the cables from your tortured pussy and draws you near, pressing the weeping head of his own spike against your inner thigh.

 

Shockwave is going to wreck you. And Starscream is going to wreck Shockwave. Not only do you hold the title of “first human to survive alien robot sex” you can now add “first human to survive an alien robot three way” to your repertoire. Why, if you weren’t pinned underneath several tons of metal, you’d give yourself a pat on the back.

 

Today is a good day.

 

You realize, with building anxiety, that no matter how many times you engage in alien sex, you’re never going to be adequately prepared to handle alien gentiles. Despite your soaking wet pussy and the generous amount of luminescent precum pooling at the tip of his spike, you still find yourself legitimately fearing you’ll be split in half as Starscream drives his hips into Shockwave, burying his spike within him, forcing Shockwave to hilt every inch of himself in you in one swift, jerking motion.

 

The air is forced out of your lungs. You want to shriek in pain, call Starscream out for being the inconsiderate bastard he is, but all that escapes your mouth is a strangled, nearly incomprehensible “ _Sonovabitch!”_

 

Shockwave swears too, or at least he’s _trying to._ Bits and pieces of human explicative’s blended with his native language and bursts of static erupt from his processor as he’s fragged against you, _into you_. You want to move with them, both of them, but your feeble attempts to match pace is short lived and ultimately fruitless and you lay plastered against the console, immobile, both you and Shockwave hapless rag dolls beneath the seeker’s relentless assault.

 

You can only lay back and gaze bleary eyed up at the ceiling as you’re both made slave to Starscream’s rhythm. Part of you is actually the tiniest bit terrified, because the look plastered on his face, the animalistic glee from having the both of you powerless and writhing beneath him, is as gorgeous as it is terrifying. That wild, uninhibited gleam in his optics like he hasn’t quite made up his mind wither or not to eat you alive. It’s art, it’s fucking _art_ and while you’re busy lamenting your inability to preserve that face for future generations to appreciate, you actually manage to crane your neck up to look at the screen you’re being fragged against, the screen Shockwave had been so engrossed in.

 

It’s a security feed, showing footage from hundreds of cameras located throughout the laboratory. And at least ten of them offers you a view of the fuck train you’ve been made the caboose of. Your eyes widen as you watch the three of you, an undulating, sparking heap from a dozen different angles. From here you can simultaneously appreciate Starscream’s long, lithe legs from the back, while training your eyes on Shockwave’s perfectly sculpted, thoroughly _ravaged_ aft.

 

And that’s hot. _Fuck_ that’s hot, and you find yourself pushed to the edge again. You throw your arms around Shockwave’s neck, pulling your head flush against his helm, intent on burying your face between his neck and shoulders. You open you mouth to cry out as he’s forced to buck painfully hard into you, but Starscream, craning his neck over the mech’s shoulder, claims your mouth with his own and swallows your cries of protest. It’s maddening, fucking _maddening_ that he can still exert this amount of control over you, pinning your tongue to the floor of your mouth with his glossa. You squeal into the kiss, feeling Shockwave’s frame shudder around you as you dig your fingers into the seams of his shoulder plating.

 

He’s close. You all are, but he’s clearly the farthest along, engines revving, frame shaking, cooling fans kicking into overdrive, and strangely enough, plumes of smoke emitting from several openings in his frame. He looks like he’s throwing every shred of his self-control into containing himself.

 

“Overload imminent.” he begins, voice shaking almost as violently as his frame. “Chance of simultaneous overload-”

 

He doesn’t get to finish. In a maneuver quite possibly too fast for human eyes to comprehend, Starscream manages to not only tear the cyclops out of you, but fling him ass-backwards onto the floor in one fluid motion. Under different circumstances, you might have complimented his agility. But right now, having been denied orgasm for the second time today, you’re fucking _furious._

 

“If you so much as _touch her_ with your spike again, I will _rip it off_.” He seethes. “Do I make myself _clear?”_

 

You want to scream. Partially at yourself for not seeing a nuclear meltdown of this caliber coming from miles away, but mostly at Starscream because what kind of asshole conductor pulls the brakes on a _fuck train?_

 

“What the fuck.” you snarl. “What the actual _fuck_ is wrong with you _?!”_

 

Starscream opens his mouth, probably to tell you to shut yours, but closes it as Shockwave, having recovered from his fall, brandishes his canon in his face.

 

“I _intend_ to participate.” he says in a cool, aggravated drawl that indicates he’s considering turning this threeway into a double homicide.

 

“Calm down, would you?” the seeker says, as if oblivious to the canon pressed against the side of his helm. “That’s not what I’m suggesting at _all.”_

 

“What do you propose?”

 

“A compromise.”

 

Starscream positions himself back over you, and you find yourself made to surrender once more as he pins both your wrists above your head with his servos. His spike, still painfuly erect, coated in both Shockwave’s lubricant and his own pre cum, bobs dangerously close to your face, the glow from the iridescent fluid and his own blood red biolights lending an almost unearthly quality to it. You have half a mind to reach out and wrap your lips around it if you weren’t _livid_ at him But as enraged as you are at being ripped from the edge of climax _again,_ you can’t help that nagging feeling in the back of your head that he wouldn’t freak out without good reason. You had, after all, just resolved to trust him. Maybe he knows what he’s doing.

 

Maybe.

 

And he’s inside you. Oh god he’s _inside you_ and you have to bite your lip _hard_ to stop from screaming. Christ you are never, _ever_ going to get used to that. _Ever._

 

He stops at the hilt and you blink, wondering why he’s not fragging your brains out in a jealous rage, but out of the corner of your eye, above his shoulders you can see Shockwave placing his servos on the seeker’s aft, grabbing his thighs painfully tight, hear the faint clinking of panel covers receding and-oh.

 

_Oh._

 

He’s inside him. He’s inside him and he’s _angry_ , every bit as furious as you are at being denied overload. There’s no gentleness, no hint of reservation as he slams his hips against his aft, electing smoke and sparks and the thick scent of burning metal to hang in the air.

 

And the cries. Oh god, he’s coaxing sounds out of Starscream you’ve _never_ heard, gasping and keening and _mewling_ and _sweet jesus_ seeing him splayed out, utterly powerless on top of you, fucked _into you_ shouldn’t turn you on, but it does, it does _so bad._

 

You wish you could see the screen from here, to watch high and mighty Starscream get fragged into a stupor from several different angles, but you can’t move. You may as well be paralyzed for all the mobility you have, equally powerless beneath him as Shockwave rails you both into the thoroughly abused keyboard.

 

_It’s probably gonna need replacing after this_ . You think hazily. Somewhere between the whirr of the cooling fans, the rumble of engines kicking on and the low, throaty growling Shockwave’s vocals had dissolved into, you can tell he’s close again.  _You’re_ close, but you’re not sure where Starscream is, and you don’t want to go over without him because you’re  _not_ a selfish piece of shit that leaves sex partners hanging and if you need to slow down, then you’re  _going_ to find some way to slow down. All of you.

 

“Overload imminent.” Shockwave begins again. “Chance of simultaneous overload-”

 

“Shut _up!”_ you both shout in unison.

 

Shockwave’s reaction to this is far from insulted. He goes silent, nonetheless, single crimson optic flickering, glued directly on you, as he brings up his servo and begins to stroke one of Starscream’s wings.

 

The result is instantaneous.

 

You feel the wind knocked out of you as Starscream bucks into you hard, _so_ hard you see stars, and that alone would be maddening if not for the resulting noise that escapes his processor.

 

He keens. High, trilling, you can make out garbled curses if you try and fuck _why had you never thought to touch the wings._ It’s unearthly, somehow beautiful and wanton all at once, and some far off part of your mind remarks that _this is probably why they call him Screamer._

 

You want to divide your attention equally between Shockwave’s paralyzing gaze and the needy, _filthy_ expression plastered on the seeker’s face, panting, _whimpering_ , struggling to keep his optics open through the haze of rapture. You sear the image into your mind, because the chances of you ever again seeing Starscream not only abandon every bit of his control, but, _enjoying_ it are infinitesimally low. You’re flying with him, _beside_ him, not _beneath_ him-

 

“Both of you-” growls Starscream, unwilling to relinquish his hold on the reigns even on the edge of climax. “-Overload. _Now!”_

 

And you’re drop-kicked out of the sky, for how _hard_ your orgasm tears through. You claw desperately at his shoulder plating as the tremors wrack through your body, strangling the seeker’s spike. He throws his helm back. “ _Slag it!”_ and his spike erupts within you, hard enough that you cry out again in pain. Vicariously through his frame, you can feel the massive mech fragging you both into the next century shudder violently as his own overload takes him.

 

The resonance between Shockwave’s low, rolling groans and Starscream’s high, warbling shrieks, is _symphony._ It’s _deafening,_ vibrations roaring through you bone-deep, and you can only half-watch through hazy, climax clouded vision as glass vials, tanks, and beakers begin to crack, and then, subsequently, burst.

 

 

You’re going to need to address that eventually. You’re sure Shockwave’s going to be pissed, once he’s done riding out the aftershocks of his overload. Starscream’s spike still twitches within you, and you can feel the warm fluid beginning to seep out, trickling down your thighs and pooling beneath you. You wonder what will happen when it mingles with the dozen or so other liquids now puddling out onto the floor from the broken containers and _wow_ you should probably work on getting out of here before that happens. But that’s going to have to wait until at least one of you recovers from the post overload haze.

 

And that might take longer than you’d expected. You suffer no illusions about actually _cuddling_ with the two of them but Starscream, wings drooping, optics half lidded, looks like he’s teetering on the edge of consciousness and Shockwave, curiously enough, brings up a servo to cradle the back of your head with, weaving his digits through your hair.

 

“____” he says suddenly, cold voice still peppered with static.

 

You jump a little, eyes wide, because this is the first time he’s ever actually bothered to address you by your _name._ It takes every remaining shred of your strength to maneuver yourself into a position where you can look at him.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“For quality assurance purposes, I require you to inform me wither or not you found this experience to be sufficiently educational.”

 

****************

 

 

“So,” you begin, some thirty or so minutes after you’d both regained enough of your motor functions to stumble your way out of the lab. “Why exactly didn’t you _tell me_ the ability to shatter glass was genetic?”

 

“You never _asked.”_ he scoffs, slipping the data stick containing the code you’d both so eagerly dropped all sexual reservations to acquire into his subspace.

 

“Gee, you never thought that might be, I don’t know, _important information?”_ you spit back at him. “I’ve been blaming that on Miko for years. Now I’m going to have to apologize to her. Apologize to _Miko.”_

 

“Yes, yes, I’m sure admitting your mistake to the girl will deal _quite_ a blow to your fragile ego. _Primus,_ can you _hear_ yourself talk?”

 

“ _You-!”_ you point a finger accusingly at him. “-Have _no_ room to talk about _ego._ I’m not the one who freaked the _fuck_ out halfway through a threeway with a evil scientist _war criminal_ and almost got us both killed!”

 

Starscream stops dead in his tracks, fixing you with an icy glare clearly meant to remind you of just how small you really are.

 

“Do you recall what I told you about mass conversion, back before we first interfaced?”

 

You pause, searching the recesses of your mind for said memory. “Yeah. You said, and I quote, “Most of you can alter your size to some extent, and some of you made a hobby of it.’”

 

“Shockwave never made a hobby of it.”

 

 

You blink.

 

 

_Wait._

 

 

“Shockwave doesn’t do _hobbies_. That was probably the first time Shockwave had ever practiced mass conversion in his _life.”_

 

 

_Wait._

 

 

“If he had destabilized during overload, which, by the way, was far more probable than you would care to know, the valve partner would have been killed. _Grusomely._ ”

 

 

_What the fuck._

 

 

“So yes, you ungrateful _slag_ eating _‘face-_ whore, It’s not often I’m willing to save someone’s life at the expense of my own. In fact, you might be the first.”

 

You feel your eye twitch as you calculate the odds of developing a spontaneous brain aneurysm. Starscream did, after all, just after all, make a split second decision to save your life at the cost of his own while you seduced his ex lover into giving you the binding code to save their species.

 

“I think-” you start, entire left side of your body now twitching “-I finally understand why I think you‘re the hottest piece of high-altitude ass this side of the space bridge.”

 

He raises an optical ridge, but remains silent.

 

“There’s only one thing in the known universe that’s more attractive to females of _any species_ than power.”

 

“He narrows his optics, curious, but unsure. “And _what,_ dear human, would that be?”

 

You feel an unconscious, wicked grin spread over your face.

 

“Ambition.” you say, making no effort to hide the smug smile on your face. “That’s the reason I chose you over Shockwave. That’s the reason I’m willing to _share_ you with Shockwave, and that’s the reason I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, Cybertron, whatever, I don’t give a fuck.”

 

 

“You wanted me because of something I _wanted?”_ he says, wings drooping, looking deflated _“_ Not for something I already had?”

 

 

“What can I say? I was an insecure, power hungry sonovabitch.”

 

 

“Was? As in, not anymore?”

 

 

“Yeah, well, you ditching me, almost dying and popping out a screeching, halfbreed _adorable_ abomination may have shifted my perspective a little bit.”

 

 

“So why exactly didn’t you run when you had the chance?”

 

 

“Because-“ You pause, running a list of explanations of varying degrees of validity through your head. _“Because I’m weak? Because I’m scared? Because I’m a narcissistic asshole with an airplane fetish?”_

 

 

“Because you’re only like half the asshole you think you are.” you say finally, grinning at the expense of his confused expression.

 

 

“That-” he starts, optical ridge raised. “Doesn’t make an iota of sense.”

 

 

“No.” you agree, tugging on his wing playfully. “It doesn’t.

 

You kind of wish you had proof. You recall the precious few seconds you watched the video feeds while getting fragged into oblivion against the console. It had probably recorded the split second when he nearly destabilized, and you wonder if you could possibly ask Shockwave for the footage. For posterity, of course. For _science._

 

And that’s when you realize, with an ice cold, sinking sensation in your chest, that Shockwave actually has _footage._

 

Oh god.

 

Oh _fuck._

 

“Shit.” you say softly, bringing your shaking hands up to cradle your head in. “Shit. _Shit!”_

 

Starscream raises an optical ridge at your reaction. “I believe a “ _Thank you my Lord.”_ would be in order-”

 

“We fucked up.”

 

“I may not be entirely versed in your human euphemisms, but I believe a more accurate version of that statement would be that we fucked _forward-”_

 

“I _mean_ we made a terrible mistake.” you say, trembling. “He recorded it. _All_ of it.” you let out a long, shaking sigh. “Shockwave has footage of us fragging him.”

 

Starscream says nothing for a beat, giving you a long, calculating look, terribly ill fitting on his face.

 

“Are you certain?”

 

“Positive. He had a security feed running. He must’ve been setting it up the entire time we were talking to him, that’s why he was so focused on the screen.” you shake with the effort of keeping your voice steady. ” _Christ,_ how could we have been so _stupid?_ We just waltzed right into his lab and _handed_ him blackmail material. Who _knows_ what he’s planning on doing with it? What if he sends it to the _autobots?_ We’d be _completely_ screwed then.”

 

 

 

“While the thought of our, er, _activities_ being made public is no doubt unsavory, it’s _hardly_ incriminating.” he says finally, slowly. “We didn’t conspire with him to overthrow the autobots or rally the remaining decepticons, we asked him for the binding code.”

 

 

“But he’s a _war criminal._ ” you growl softly, digging your fingers into the side of your head. “They’ve been trying to hunt him down for _years._ If it gets out that we communicated with him at all, let alone _fragged_ him they could throw us in prison.”

 

“They’re not going to imprison us.” he rolls his optics. “Our work is faction neutral, and far too important to interrupt. The most they would do is exile us, which, by the way they’ve already threatened to do once. The most we’d be forced to do is move our research with us.”

 

“They could take Blackbird away from us.”

 

He freezes.

 

You bite your lower lip hard, staring intently into the ground.

 

“If they get a hold of that footage, they could decide we’re too willing to take risks, and deem us unfit parents.” you say shakily. “Honestly, after what we’ve done, it’s a miracle they let us see her at _all,_ let alone _raise_ her unchecked.” you look back up him, sighing heavily. “If they decide to take her, there’s literally _nothing_ we can do to stop them.”

 

There’s a long, stony silence in which he regards you with a completely unreadable expression.

 

“That,” he begins, voice perfectly neutral. “Is of no consequence. “She would not be harmed. They would care for her without bias. We cannot factor our custody of her into our decisions, not with the future of an entire species at stake.”

 

Your heart sinks further still, and even though you want to challenge him, to tell him he’s a pragmatic, heartless piece of shit, you can’t find the words nor willpower to do so.

 

He’s right.

 

********************

 

 

You spend most of the flight back in a bitter silence. Equal parts cold, unrelenting anger at Starscream for his sterile (albeit reasonable) outlook on your actions, and nervous, jittery fear.

 

“You’re overreacting. It’s not like he’s going to plan an outright assault.” he says, matter-of-factly. “He doesn’t even have our coordinates.“

 

He has a point, and the nagging, logical side of you wants to agree with him. But the maternal side of you wants logic to go fuck itself, because you’d identified a potential threat to your spawn, and there’s no force in the known universe, short of the destruction of that footage or the assurance of Shockwave’s untimely death that’s going to sufficiently calm your nerves.

 

“I still want to beef up the security system.” you say, picturing the ship’s layout in your head and trying to asses where the best place to install additional laser grids would be. Which, right now, in your nerve-wracked mind, is _everywhere._ “I want more auto turrets.”

 

“We have _plenty_ of auto turrets.”

 

“Well then I want cannons. _Vulcan_ cannons. And a turbo fox. No, a _pack_ of turbo foxes-”

 

“We are _not_ getting anymore pets.” he snarls. “We can hardly keep those wretched sea creatures from off lining themselves in our air ducts!”

 

 

“Yeah…about that.” you begin, once again rueing your daughter’s inexplicable fondness for suicidal pets. “We should probably put lids on those tanks or something so they can’t craw ou-”

 

You find the words quite literally knocked out of you as Starscream, who had been leisurely cruising somewhere around mach three, comes to an almost instantaneous stop. Had you been fully human rather than a techno organic abomination, you’re reasonably certain you would have snapped your neck.

 

“What the-?”

 

“Smoke.” he says, voice raised in alarm. “There’s _smoke_ coming from the Harbinger.”

 

Your heart drops. Though that might also be because he’s dropped into a spiraling nosedive. Had he not just informed you that your house, where you had left your seven year old alone is quite possibly on _fire_ you might’ve yelled at him for not warning you beforehand.

 

You’re left in awe by his agility a second time that day as he turns a 90 degree angel _inches_ before colliding with the ground, effortlessly reverts to his default mode and transfers you from his cockpit to his servo in the span of about three seconds. He’d mercifully perfected the art of handing your tiny self at his natural height, and cups you with both servos so you don’t go flying in the opposite direction from the impact. You appreciate his foresight while you try your damndest not to vomit.

 

“ _Stay calm stay calm.“_ you tell yourself as you furiously punch in the door code. While you’re relatively positive that no one could have possibly made it past the ship’s security system without either of you at least being _notified_ , you’re also pretty positive that if someone, _anyone_ had managed to lay so much as a finger on Blackbird, your tiny, squishy ass is going to find some way to _murder_ them, metal titian or no.

 

When you finally do make it to the lab and open the door, you’re almost knocked -ass-backwards by the smell. A cruel mélange of seared metal and burned seafood assaults your olfactory senses and you gag, automatically covering your mouth with your hand. You hear Starscream make a similar retching noise as you desperately fan the smoke away from your face, long enough to make out the source of the smell, and the smoke, and probably the alarms now starting to wail.

 

Blackbird, is seems, is not taking her first brush with mortality in stride, and had attempted to electrocute the late Sampulcee back into the realm of the living. Several times. Honestly, you probably wouldn’t be able to identify the charred, smoking wad of flesh on the table as an octopus if it weren‘t for the smell.

 

Part of you is genuinely impressed by her innovation and tenacity. The rest of you wants to scream, drink a gallon of highgrade, and ground her for the next thirty years.

 

“Blackbird,” you start, straining to keep your voice level. “Blackbird, what the _hell_ do you think you‘re doing _-”_

 

“It worked in the movies!” She blurts out, before you have a chance to reprimand her further.

 

You vaguely recall giving her a copy of the 1930’s version of _Frankenstein_ earlier that month to keep her quiet for a solid hour and a half while you‘d snuck off for some sorely needed alone time with Starscream, and now find yourself wilting under said seeker’s piercing gaze.

 

“ _What_ did I tell you about exposing her to that pseudo scientific _nonsense_ your species churns out?” he snarls.

 

“You-” _Were singing hymns to Primus while I had your spike in my mouth._ you cough violently. “-Said to _not to.”_

 

“And _you-”_ Starscream gestures accusingly at the diminutive seeker. “We will discuss this transgression in the morning. For now, return to your quarters.” He grimaces. “And take a decontamination bath. You smell like decaying cephalopod.”

 

“Well _you_ smell like _shame!”_ she fires back. “And _bad decisions!_ Both of you!” and before either of you have a chance to reprimand her further she takes off down the corridor, screeching incoherently.

 

You exchange an exhausted look with your consort.

 

“She’s…not wrong.” you offer, shrugging.

 

He growls, low, frustrated, digging his talons into the side of his helm.

 

“We’re going…to have to go in there after her…. Aren’t we?” he seethes between gritted denta.

 

You let out an exhausted sigh. “Unless you can recharge while she’s shrieking like that, yes, yes we do.”

 

****************

As shitty as you feel, with the weight of Shockwave‘s unexpected leverage, Starscream’s lackadaisical attitude towards your custody of your sparkling, and the fact that the entire ship now smells faintly of burned fish, Blackbird’s high frequency shrieks dissolving into high frequency _sobbing_ has a way of making you feel like absolute _garbage._

 

You’d left her alone, right after she’d lost her first pet, and then had the audacity to _yell_ at her for trying to bring it back to life. Honestly, you’d never been gunning for mom of the year award, not with your history, but this was downright pathetic. _Maybe she would be better off with the autobots._ you think miserably as you sit next to her on her berth, rubbing the back of her helm comfortingly.

 

“We got you some new ones.” you offer awkwardly. “ _Two_ news ones.” _Just in case one of them tries to kill itself again._

 

“But they’re not _her.”_ she shoots back. “Sampulcee was missing her second tentacle, and her third one had two hundred and forty one suckers and all other octopuses only have two hundred and _forty_!”

 

Starscream, perched at the opposite end of her berth, seems equally at a loss for comforting words. “You could always amputate one of the new one’s tentacles.”

 

You shoot an exhausted, dirty glare at him. He responds with a frustrated sigh.

 

“She’s…one with the Allspark now.” he begins again, switching tactics. “She’s better off. You needn’t feel sorry for her.”

 

“But she can’t _go_ to the Allspark, she’s _organic!”_ she whines.

 

“Yes, well…ah… _scrap_.” he turns to you. “Where does organic life go after it expires?”

 

You rub the back of your head, way too tired to be dealing with this kind of existential bullshit. “Uh…Heaven?”

 

“Yes, er, _heaven.”_ He repeats. “She’s gone to aquatic cephalopod heaven, where she can interact with other cephalopods and violently disassemble inferior sea life as much as she wants.”

 

“But she’s still not _here.”_ Blackbird whimpers, a fresh wave of coolant running out of her optics. “I couldn’t rescue her in time and now she’s _gone_ and it’s _my fault!”_

 

Starscream throws a hopeless look your way, to which you merely give an apologetic shrug. You’re honestly bewildered that he hasn’t thrown in the towel and stormed out by now.

 

“You’re correct. It _is_ your fault. She’s dead and you can’t bring her back.”

 

She stops crying and stares at him, unbelieving. You once again resist the urge to slam your head into the nearest wall. _You heartless sonovabitch._

 

“But what you _can_ do is learn from your mistake.” he continues, placing a servo on her shoulder. “Put lids and locks on the top of the tank so they can’t escape. Enrich their environment so they’ll be less inclined to leave to begin with. You can’t help SampulCee. Do better by these two.”

 

She says nothing for a moment, still hiccuping slightly, optics narrowed in thought.

 

“Will you help me with the locks?” she asks finally.

 

“We will. We’ll fix a lock a sharkticon couldn’t break through.” He assures her. “So you’ll do good to get adequate recharge, because we’re going to do it first thing tomorrow and I don’t’ want you falling into stasis while _I_ do all the work.”

 

This, at long last, seems to reassure her, and she leans back onto the berth, shuffling under the mesh sheets. “Okay.”

 

There’s a span of about a minute, in which you listen to her shallow ex-vents even out as she drifts off, and you violently fight off an aneurysm on account of having just witnessed Starscream out-parent you.

 

“Alright.” you say finally, softly, as to not wake the lightly recharging sparkling, sliding yourself onto the floor. “I’m…I’m gonna take a decontamination shower. So I can wash off the smell of ‘shame and bad decisions’” you make air quotes. “You wanna join me? Conserve resources and all that?”

 

More silence.

 

“You….go on ahead.” he says, far too quiet for your liking, wings drooping, optics unmoving from Blackbird’s slumbering form. “I’ll join you momentarily.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy it's been half a year. Guess it's time to update again. ~~Oh god I'm so sorry.~~

“ _One hundred and ninety nine auto-turrets on the wall, one hundred and ninety-nine auto-turrets-”_

 

You sing to yourself, perched precariously atop a nearly two-story tall makeshift stepladder you’d cobbled together out of metal debris in order to reach the ceiling, where you, despite Starscream’s ridicule, had begun to fortify the Harbinger’s automated security system. Mostly by adding a ludicrous amount of auto-turrets.

 

You’re spared the need to find some way to make _“Take one down”_ and _“Incinerate Shockwave’s aft.”_ rhyme as a certain brand of Bulgarian shriek metal comes wailing from across the hallway, nearly causing you to lose your balance.

 

“ _Goddamnit Blackbird.”_ you hiss through your teeth as you narrowly avoid falling and re-establish your death grip, though at the expense of your 200th auto-turret, which tumbles out of your hand to the floor bellow, where it shatters.

 

That could have been you. You growl softly under your breath, cursing your spawn, cursing your own shortsightedness for macgyvering a stepladder out of discarded alien technology instead of some sort of anti-gravity device like a normal mad scientist.

 

 

You find yourself mentally drawing up plans for exactly such a contraption in your mind instead of rehearsing a well-thought-out maternal rant about why noise that loud _had_ to be bad for your audial receptors and how music in your day actually _meant something_ like a competent mom as you shimmy your way down the ladder and make your way over to Blackbird’s hab suit.

 

“TURN THAT SCRAP DOWN.” you shout, once you’d given up on guessing which variation of “octopus” she’d changed the access code to and kicked open the door.

 

Blackbird, who had been staring intently down at a disheveled spread of data pads on her desk, raises her helm to give you a split-second look of bewilderment, before her narrow, bird-like face scrunches in rage.

 

“Who said you could come into my room?!”

 

“Me. I did.” you say flatly, jabbing a thumb at yourself.

 

“You’re _supposed_ to use the password!”

 

“And _you’re_ not supposed to change it ten times a day.” you say, choosing to ignore the hypocrisy that you’d tormented Shockwave in an identical fashion for the entirety of your internment aboard the Nemsis. “Or play “Slash Monkey” at over 85 decibels.”

 

“It’s not _“Slash Monkey”_ anymore it’s _“Perforation Primate”_ and they go _ten times_ as hard!” she fires back.”

 

You inhale deeply through your nose and out your mouth, resisting the urge to simply tear the wires out of her speaker system and be done with it. Blasting godawful music is hardly justification for that kind of punishment, no matter how obnoxious or migraine inducing it is. Especially considering she’d _earned_ it, through an entire two weeks of good behavior, maintaining a perfect Ph balance in her fish tank and keeping her room immaculate.

 

You’d never been much of an interior decorator yourself, but Blackbird seems to have found a certain uneasy feng shui in how she organized her quarters, seamlessly blending the aesthetic of cheerfully painted pink furniture and wall to ceiling shelves of stuffed animals with space age aquatic filtration systems, centrifuges and a pint-sized vivisection table. You can’t help feeling, as you try in vain to digest the cocktail of horror and parental pride you feel at her choice in furnishings, that this why you never told your family about her.

 

Well, that and their response to the one and only photo you‘d sent them years ago in a moment of weakness during the holiday season. You‘d deliberated for hours on what to say in the heavily encrypted email, choosing your words with the utmost scrutiny before finally settling on a simple, sweet apology.

 

“ _Hey guys, sorry to contact you from beyond the grave(Surprise! I‘m not dead!) I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and I’m sorry I can’t answer any of them right now, but there is something I’d like to show you.”_

 

You’d attached a sparkling picture of Blackbird, hardly over a month old, possessively cuddling the first iteration of SampulCee.

 

“ _Her name is Blackbird.”_

 

An agonizing two weeks had gone by before you’d received a response.

 

“ _Is that some kind of toaster?”_

 

You hadn’t tried to contact them since.

 

You’re wretched back to the present as Blackbird, in her fury, has decided to take out her anger on said vivisection table, and has flipped it over in rage, sending delicate, precise, _extremely sharp_ instruments flying in all directions.

 

You drop to the ground just in time to avoid a scalpel that goes whizzing inches past your head. You swear under your breath. Music is one thing. Flinging sharp objects in the vicinity of your easily(comparatively) injured organic mother is a _whole ‘nother ball game._ You get to your feet, fuming, intent on doling out the most creative punishment you could hope to enforce on a flight-capable child who’s nearly as tall as you are, but find your anger fizzling out as you watch her slump to her knees and punch the floor with her tiny metal fists, frustrated tears pooling in the corners of her optics.

 

_Fuck._

 

“Alright, what’s wrong?” you ask, carefully picking your way through the debris to place a comforting hand on her shoulder plating.

 

She lets out a furious little ex-vent at your touch, but doesn’t move away, and tilts her helm up to look at you.

 

“I want St3v3 and Blueberry Spicehead to have babies.”

 

You’re almost remiss for a glass of water to drink and then, subsequently spit out to convey your confusion. You settle on a violently twitching left eye instead.

 

“You what now?”

 

“The _octopuses!”_ she reiterates, voice heavy with sheer indignation that you could have conceivably forgotten her beloved pet’s names. “I want them to have _babies.”_

 

“Um,” you begin, searching your woefully unprepared mental catalogue for an appropriate reaction to this situation. “Have you tried, I dunno, putting them in the same tank and turning the lights off?”

 

“Girl octopi _die_ when they lay eggs, don’t you know _anything?”_ she asks, rolling her optics. “That’s why I’m setting up a third tank so I can artificially inseminate and incubate them so St3v3 won’t stop eating and shrivel up and starve before they hatch.”

 

You once again find yourself hovering between a surge of pride so strong it brings you to tears and a surge of concern so potent you vomit. Pride wins out in the end, although a wave of nausea accompanies your misty eyes.

 

“Okay, you’ve thought really far ahead.” you say, positively beaming. “But it looks like you’ve already solved the problem.”

 

“I only solved _one_ problem!” she whines. “Now I need get rid of the gene that makes them want to get out of their tank and dry up and die but I _can’t find it!”_

 

Your pride, it seems, has reached it’s zenith for one day and you come crashing down from your high to land mired in a swamp of self doubt and concern but mostly _what the actual fuck._

 

“What the actual fu…fungal…parasitic…anthropods.” you correct yourself, wincing in turn at every increasingly bizarre addition. _Smooth move you awkward fuck._

 

Blackbird continues nonplussed. “We put the lids on and locked them, they have rocks and coral to hide in and they each get ten crabs to kill every day and that’s more than they’d _ever_ get in the wild and they _still try to escape!”_ she growls, digging her talons into the sides of her helm. “I did everything Starscream said and they _still_ want to die!”

 

“Don’t call him Starscream.” you say, choosing to latch onto the least ludicrous aspect of this conversation. “He’s your sire. Call him _sire.”_

 

She scrunches her face. “That’s what _you_ call him when you think I’m not listening.”

 

“Then call him _dad!”_ you yell, turning to hide your beet red face.

 

She raises an optical ridge. She attempts to stifle a fit of giggles at your expense. She fails spectacularly.

 

“Is there a reason-” you start, once you’ve had a moment to calm down and regain your composure. “-that you’ve rather alter them genetically instead of just keeping them locked in their tanks?”

 

Blackbird goes quiet for a moment, making a soft, trilling whistle, a noise you’d come to understand meant she was in deep contemplation. She pulls one of the data pads from the debris pile, a pre-war unit with a scratched screen titled _“Genetic Engineering 101 : A beginners guide to playing Primus.”_

 

“I want them to be perfect.” she says finally, not tearing her optics from the screen. “I want to make an octopus that doesn’t want to escape, that doesn’t starve itself when it lays eggs and doesn’t like killing crabs.”

 

That’s…that’s worrisome. That’s probably not something you want to hear coming from a seven year old’s mouth, no matter what species they are. You briefly wonder how much of her desire to give biology the middle finger came from her father and how much came from you, but considering you shared an equal disdain for the laws of nature you know deep down it’s both, and if she winds up smarter and more determined than either of you then it’s probably an asset to the universe. And that’s what you’re going to believe, no matter _how hard_ your instincts scream otherwise.

 

You let out a long withheld breath. “If you change all of those things, would they still be an octopus?”

 

“No.” she says simply, the faintest suggestion of a smile creeping over her face. “They’d be better.”

 

***

 

After promising to play her music at a lower volume and to take a break instead of flipping tables when she got frustrated, you’d finally left Blackbird to her own devices, gathered your broken turret, and walked back into the hallway, where you’d then promptly slumped against the wall to stare blankly into space.

 

“I know I cause your knee-joints to deactivate, but this is a tad excessive.”

 

You peer through your fingers to see your 30 ft tall alien robot consort eyeing you curiously, optical ridge raised. You let out a soft groan as you let your hands slide off your face.”

 

“Are you aware-” You being, getting back to your feet. “-that our daughter is holed up in her room teaching herself _genetic engineering?”_

 

There’s a gleam in his optics as he perks his wings up, looking positively pleased with himself. “I am. I provided her with the data pads this morning. She’s learning exceedingly fast, even by cybertronian standards.”

 

“You’re actually _proud_ of her?” you ask, dumbfounded.

 

“You’re not?”

 

“Um…” you begin, because now that you think about it, you actually _are._ “I just… don’t you think that’s a bit age-inappropriate? She’s _seven._ She should be concerned about _kid_ things, like trying to break mach five or beating up Tailgate again.”

 

“She’s also descended from one of the most brilliant scientific minds this side of the universe. And you.” Starscream adds hastily, and you resist the urge to hurl the shattered remains of the turret directly into his face.

 

“Yeah,” you sigh in resignation. “It just…doesn’t seem normal.”

 

“That’s because she’s _not_ normal, she’s _better_ than normal.” He says with a huff. “You’re working yourself up over nothing. What were _you_ doing at seven solar cycles of age?”

 

You think back, recalling an incident during show and tell where you’d brought in a farm of Nicaraguan bullet ants you’d bred to be three times as aggressive as _normal_ bullet ants and, when ridiculed, had unleashed all over the classroom. _“This isn’t even their final form!”_ you’d yelled from atop your desk, swearing to return someday with ants that were _ten_ times as aggressive as normal. Your teacher and classmates may not have taken the gesture seriously (That is, until the resulting stinging, which registered a 4+ on the Starr pain scale, had prompted several emergency room visits.) but it was that petty, all consuming drive for revenge that had ultimately spurred you into acquiring a PhD in genetics.

 

“Alright you got me.” you concede, scowling at the “I told you so” sneer that had come over his face at your admission. “What are you doing here, anyways?”

 

“Am I not allowed to wander my own dwelling at my leisure?”

 

“Why do you have to turn _everything_ into an argument?” you roll your eyes. “I mean what have you been _doing_ for the past six hours? You weren’t even in the berth when I woke up.”

 

“Because you drove me out with that _wretched_ organic venting you do during recharge.”

 

“At least I don’t need to turn the lights on and nurse a cube of high-grade after a nightmare.”

 

There’s a lightning-fast flash of raw vulnerability in his optics that he immediately compensates for by baring his denta and growling. Anyone else would’ve missed it, but you’ve known him for far too long. Shame prickles hot behind your neck, and part of you wishes you could abandon this stupid passive-aggressive power struggle long enough to issue an honest apology.

 

“If you _must_ know-” he says, continuing on as though he hadn’t slipped. “-I’ve been analyzing the binding code we received from Shockwave.”

 

You expertly repress the cold bolt of paranoia and the resulting full-body shudder that comes at the sound of his name. “And?”

 

“And I’m taking a short break to refresh my processor while I consider alternative diagnostic options.”

 

“You mean you’re stuck.” you say flatly.

 

He growls again, and you half-expect him to fire back with a creative insult at your expense, but he instead sighs in resignation, shoulders slouched and wings drooping in exhaustion.

 

“The code is positively _leviathan_ in proportion.” he says, pinching the bridge between his optical ridges in frustration. “Even between the both of us it could take _decades_ just to supplant what we need for a framework.”

 

Your heart drops into your stomach, cold disappointment settling in your chest. “It’s a dead end, isn’t it?”

 

“While I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility _entirely_ , our efforts may be better directed elsewhere.”

 

You sigh. “So we’re back to, what exactly? Tinkering around with the compilation-capable protoforms?”

 

“It would appear so, for the time being.”

 

You lean back against the wall, sliding down into a defeated, slumped position on the floor. First your daughter’s fledgling steps into the eugenics movement for cephalopods and now this. What you’d give just to go back to merrily installing space-age-military-grade weaponry to protect your house against an evil scientist war criminal you’d _menage a trois_ ’d with your alien robot consort.

 

And that’s when it hits you.

 

“Hey-” you begin, moving from your slumped position against the wall. “The protoforms only accept one set of genetics right?”

 

“I believe I informed you of that after your arrival on the Nemisis over _eight stellar cycles ago_ but please, really, do go on.”

 

You ignore the sarcasm and press on. “It selects one or the other based on superiority because of the screening function. It’s just selecting whatever set has less defects and discards the other one instead of combining them.”

 

“Congratulations. You posses basic reasoning skills.”

 

“What if…” you start. “What if this entire time it was just rejecting the second C.N.A sample because the parameters for acceptable genes was set too high?”

 

“What are you suggesting?”

 

“That we increase the allowance for defects.” you say, voice shaking with cautious optimism.

 

“Absolutely not.”

 

You look at Starscream as if he’d just grown two heads. He looks at your as though you’d just sawn yours off.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“I _personally_ designed the screening function so the next generation wouldn’t have to suffer from horrific defects.” He sneers. “Or would _you_ like to explain to an entire generation why they onlined with malformed T-cogs or segmented spinal struts?”

 

“But it’s _not_ just debilitating deformities.” you fire back. “It screens for almost purely cosmetic shortcommings too, like brittle plating.”

 

“Clearly you’ve never seen a mech reduced to a shivering pile of protomass because his own _skin_ can’t stay attached. It is _suffering.”_

 

“There are treatments.” you retort. “Easy treatments. _Painless_ treatments.”

 

“ _Costly_ treatments.” he corrects you. “Cybertron is still being rebuilt, we have no economy or currency to speak of and no means of trading with other planet’s for supplies. It would be completely unethical to produce newsparks with even _minor_ deformities if we lack the ability to fix them!”

 

“But _peg warming-”_

 

“Peg warming _killed my cousin!”_

 

“You-” _are so full of shit._ You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself before this dissolved into yet another shouting match.

 

“Look,” you say finally. “Despite your best efforts, your spark’s in the right place. I’ll admit that. But we can’t keep nitpicking at this stuff while your species is on the verge of extinction.”

 

He raises an optical ridge. “So you’re admitting that I have a point?”

 

“I am.” you say, summoning every bit of maturity you can muster. “But I still think it’s safer bet to have more individuals capable of reproducing at this point, even if they do have a higher risk of complications, rather than let your numbers stay so dangerously low. We can deal with the medical problems as they come.”

 

He narrows his optics, and you can almost _hear_ the cogs whirring away in his processor as he contemplates your side of the argument. You cross your fingers, wary of the hope you feel spreading within you at the possibility of maybe, _possibly_ finding something to finally agree on.

 

“No.”

 

_Or not._

 

“No?” you say, eye twitching. “That’s it? Just ‘no’?”

 

“Are your audial receptors malfunctioning?” he asks. “Rest assured, if _I_ had engineered your species, that wouldn’t be an issue.”

 

If looks could kill Starscream would be reduced to a puddle of primordial ooze.

 

“You-” you gesturing accusingly with your finger, ignoring the infuriatingly well-timed _burn. “-_ Are being _completely_ illogical!”

 

“You're starting to sound like a certain _infuriating_ one-eyed purple _oaf_ we both know. ”

 

“You mean that purple oaf that almost fragged your pretty aft into a coma?” you sneer.

 

“Which I _only allowed_ in a last-ditch measure to save your pathetic organic frame from an untimely, _gruesome_ death!” He spits back. “Which, by the way, you’re _welcome.”_

 

You clutch your head, snarling like an enraged housecat. “I almost hope he _does_ break in. That way you’d be too busy choking on his spike to give me anymore _bullshit.”_

 

“I hope he shows up and _wrecks_ your minuscule frame and tosses your remains in the waste bin where they belong!”

 

“I hope he sits on your face and forces you to eat out his valve while you recite the entire vosian alphabet _backwards.”_

 

“I hope he lubricates in your intake while shoving his canon so far up your waste valve you cough up plasma discharge!”

 

_That one’s gonna be hard to top._ You open your mouth in preparation to hurl yet another ludicrously complicated sexual insult, but find yourself at a loss for words and relatively short of breath, and if Starscream’s labored ex-venting and narrowed optics are any indicator, he’s exhibiting the same physical symptoms at the mentioned of your favorite one eyed evil purple motherfucker’s name.

 

“Are you-” you begin, sweating, heart racing. “Anywhere _near_ as turned on as I am right now?”

 

You get your answer in the form of a full body tackle. He had, in fact, managed to mass convert between the time he’d pushed up off the ground and landed to cage your body beneath his frame. You’d probably be more in awe of his agility if he didn’t routinely use it to _terrify you,_ but once your life finishes flashing before your eyes you find yourself melting into the kiss he’s started, silky and rough but still somehow so very _angry._

 

You hate this, hate that no matter how mad you get or how loudly you fight or how much stupid bullshit comes out of his mouth you still get so _weak_ against him, hate that it takes every shred of your strength just to participate, just to _not_ like plastered against the floor like a rag doll.

 

For once, you surprisingly find your arms _not_ pinned to your side of over your head, so you wrap them around his helm, tracing your fingers along the narrow not-quite-there divots between his neck cables and plating. He shivers, growling appreciatively against your skin. But when you press them into the seams between his shoulders, where the base of his wings meet his back he not only bucks so hard against you that you cry out in surprise, but begins _shrieking at the top of his lungs._

 

_What the actual fuck._ You immediately withdraw your hands, terrified that you’d somehow critically injured him but find his expression of utter bewilderment mirror your own as the shrieking continues.

 

“ _STOP!”_

 

You both crane your heads to see Blackbird tearing down the hallway at breakneck speed, waving her arms and screeching like a banshee.

 

You both freeze. You both exchange split second looks of terror, anger, and then finally, begrudging acceptance, as you effortlessly detangle yourselves from each other’s embrace. It’s a nubile, ninja-esque maneuver and part of you marvels at the irony that such a fluid, synchronized play of metal and muscle was merely the end result of being cockblocked by your own spawn more times than you could count.

 

“I don’t care how much she smells like cupcakes, don’t _eat_ her!” She shrieks. “Or if you’re just killing each other then stop that too!”

 

It’s then you remember, that genius IQ and propensity for playing god or no, Blackbird is still very much a seven year old, and in the manner of most seven year olds that stumbled upon doomed procreation attempts, had naturally assumed the adults involved were trying to murder each other.

 

“No one is eating or killing _anyone,_ I assure you.” Starscream says finally, rolling his optics at the relief visible in her face. “Now, where exactly does nutritionally void human confectionery come into play?”

 

“She smells like sweet sugary metal.” she reiterates. “Like cupcakes with rust shavings on them. I know she doesn’t normally smell like that and I know you can smell it too.”

 

You look at her, then at Starscream, who merely shrugs. Then back at Blackbird. “What I do I _normally_ smell like?” you ask finally.

 

“Wet leaves.” she says plainly. And Starscream smells like spicy chemicals.”

 

“That’s’ _sire_ to you.” he growls and the expression of pure, unadulterated _smug_ that Blackbird spares you will surely haunt your nightmares for years to come. You bury your face in your hands, screaming internally.

 

“You wanna know what you guys smell like together?” she asks coyly, folding her servos behind her.

 

“Shame and bad decisions.” you and your consort say unanimously.

 

“You _ruined_ the joke!”

 

***

 

“You have a point.”

 

You nearly jump out of your skin. Mostly because you’d spent the last hour and a half immersed nearly 4000 lines down in the binding code you’d received from Shockwave, looking for any possible breaks and hadn’t heard the seeker come in, but also because you’re not playing jeopardy and didn’t just select _“Four words that Starscream will never say.”_

 

True to form, the expression on his face indicates the mere utterance of the words had dealt him an extraordinary measure of pain and he scowls, optics deliberately avoiding your eyes as he continues.

 

“It is . . . irresponsible to avoid reproducing when our numbers are so critically low.” he continues. “So I suggest that we, _temporarily-_ ” and the emphasis on that word is almost _sickening_. “-set aside our ethical differences and work towards a short-term solution.”

 

You do nothing, sitting wide eyed and slack jawed with your arms hanging limp at your side, before your mind finally kicks back into overdrive. You reach for a particularly hefty glass beaker on your desk, and hurl it at the seeker, and watch as it collides perfectly with the side of his helm and shatters.

 

He shrieks in surprise, recoiling.

 

“What in the _pit_ was that for?!” he snarls.

 

“ _You-”_ you point a finger at him accusingly “-are _not_ Starscream!” you spit back, cold fear coiling in the pit of your stomach as you reach for another beaker. “So you better tell me what in the _hell_ you did with my consort before I activate all one hundred and nintey-nine auto turrets and have your pretty aft _incinerated!”_

 

“Would you _calm down?”_ he implores, narrowly dodging the second beaker by a few inches. “I haven’t been replaced by _anyone,_ though I’m thoroughly insulted at the mere _notion_ that you believe I could’ve been!”

 

“Prove it.” you say darkly, brandishing a third container, within it some sort of sickly green glowing liquid simply marked as “ _corrosive.”_

 

He sighs dramatically. “You unleashed a hoard of bullet ants in your second grade classroom.”

 

“Not good enough.” you narrow your eyes. “I was written up for that. You could have looked up the school records.”

 

He narrows his optics, a wry smile on his mouth. “You enjoy being bitten between your neck and your shoulder.”

 

You nearly lose your grip on the beaker. “G-good one.” you stammer. “But you could have found that out by watching the security cameras.”

 

“You lubricated from your optics when I took Blackbird flying for the first time.”

 

“How many time do I have to tell you _I got stung by a bee?!”_ you shoot back, face turning beet red.

  
“It was _winter.”_ he scoffs. “We were _outside_ , we were _alone,_ and there was _no means_ of recording the incident.”

 

You open your mouth to protest further, but find yourself coming to the conclusion that he’s _right._

 

“Okay, fine.” you say sourly, setting the container of acid gingerly back onto your desk. “But you’ve got some explaining to do.”

 

“ _Me?”_ he asks incredulously. “ _I_ wasn’t the one slinging _glass-”_

 

“You don’t just waltz in here after a fight and tell me I’m _right_ about something.” you cut him off. “So either something major changed within the last hour and a half or you had some sort of processor crash, because that’s honestly the only reason I can fathom you changing your mind about the genetic screening function on the protoforms.”

 

“I never _said_ I changed my mind!” he snaps back. “I _said_ it was irresponsible to avoid reproducing! _Primus,_ are your primitive audial receptors _that daft?”_

 

You dig your fingers into your scalp, resisting the urge to scream. “ _Look,_ until you either agree to dial the screening function back or I finish altering this clusterfuck of a code Shockwave gave us, we _don’t have a choice.”_

 

“But we _do_ have a choice. Given, it’s not the fastest method, but it _is_ reliable, and it’s better than doing _nothing_ while we’re busy whittling down the variables.”

 

You remove your hands from your hair, and for the second time that day you find your brain refusing to function as you stare up at the seeker with impossibly wide eyes.

 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” you say, flatly.

 

“Blackbird came into existence with no malformations or injuries to speak of. She’s the perfect picture of health.” his voice drops an octave, using that velvety, rumbling purr he’d established so long ago could bend you to his every whim. “Why, she’s even demonstrated a more acute olfactory sense than full blooded cybertronians. For example, she identified that you‘d gone into a heat cycle before even _I_ had.”

 

“ _Cupcakes with rust shavings.”_ you remember bitterly. That sounds like a great name for a perfume, if you could figure out how to bottle the essence of a glitch in heat. You make a mental note to at least _try_ and then, in the event of your success, douse Starscream with it before shoving him into an insecticon hive.

 

“You’ve got to be _fucking_ kidding me.” you whine, finding yourself unconsciously backing away.

 

He laughs, high and pearly and _why god why_ does he _still have that effect on you._ “Come now, (y/n), it wasn’t all bad.” he lifts your chin up with a single talon, forcing you to look head on into smoldering crimson optics. “As I recall, you spent the better half of an hour _begging_ for it.”

 

“And if I had even the _faintest_ idea of what the aftermath would entail I would have sat my ass down and got my priorities straight. Probably. Maybe.” you fire back, shaking with the effort of keeping your voice straight. God how you wish you could will your body to react to logic, instead of sending all of your blood _away_ from your brain. “I almost _died.”_

 

He withdraws his talon from under your chin, waving his servo dismissively. “That’s because you _insisted_ on working yourself to exhaustion for cycles on end. If you just take it easy this time and give yourself adequate time to recharge, you’ll be fine.”

 

_This time._

 

It’s then, as you remember the headaches, the nausea, the headaches, the vomiting, the headaches, the double vision and the _headaches_ you find yourself suddenly filled with the strength and resolve to do something you’ve never had the willpower to do before in your life : Turn down sex with Starscream.

 

“Nope.” you say simply, hopping off your chair, away from your desk, and backing away towards the door.

 

Starscream looks as though he’d just endured an Ultra-Magnus grade processor crash.

 

“Nope?” he repeats, optic twitching. _“Nope?”_

 

“Nope.” you confirm, turning on your heel and taking off down the hallway at breakneck speed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck me it's been a while. Sorry this is so short. I kinda had to divide this shit up into three parts so it wouldn't be like 40 pages long or take me till june to finish.

 

Starscream, as it turns out, being in the upper echelons of attractiveness for his species, had never _once_ experienced the sting of having an interfacing proposal turned down in his aeons long life. As such, he’d never really developed a coping mechanism for rejection, and his reaction was as equally hilarious as it was horrifying.

 

He chased you.

 

At first, he seemed amused, perhaps having figured you weren’t serious, and merely walked leisurely alongside you, gargantuan legs at his default height easily keeping up with the absolute fastest pace your tiny human legs would allow. But he soon grew impatient, which resulted in him making halfhearted grabs at you with his servo, which soon turned into deliberate grabs, which eventually dissolved into a pants-shittingly terrifying game of cat and mouse where you were avoiding his pedes and servos by mere inches. You had, at one point shimmied up his leg, up his back, and, executing a ninja-esq maneuver that would’ve made _Miko_ proud, used his shoulder plating as a jumping off point and propelled yourself into an open air duct.

 

You had half expected him to mass displace, and come in after you, but his ego had apparently been bruised enough for one night, and he had eventually skulked off.

 

That should have been the end of it, because nothing sends a clearer message that you’re _not_ down to ’face like wedging yourself into your ship’s ventilation system, but you know better. This is far from over. You don’t initiate a game of hide and seek with a _seeker_ and expect to come out on top.

 

But it’s still a game, one your pride as a human female is inherently dependant on, and that’s how you justify roping your daughter into it when you enter her room through a lose ceiling panel you’d pried open.

 

She doesn’t look as surprised at you’d expected, but when you trip on your climb down from the shelves causing an avalanche of stuffed animals to pile around your crumpled body, she does start laughing.

 

It’s a pearly, icy laugh, clearly inherited, and you’d probably find that comparison endearing if they weren’t _always_ at your expense.

 

“Can you get me a cube?” you ask emerging from the pile, leaving your last shred of self respect next to a pink rabbit and a wall-eyed teddy bear.

 

“Why?”  
  


”Because-” _I’m like 99.9% sure your father’s going to try and nail me by the pantry. “-_ I’m your mom.” you finish shortly, being far too hungry and sleep-deprived to play bullshit artist with your own spawn.

 

“No I mean why have you been crawling around in the air ducts all night?” she asks.

 

“Um…” you rack your brain, not feeling confident enough to risk another _“because I said so.”_ on your over-inquisitive child. “You’ve played hide and seek, right?”

 

“Duh.” she says, rolling her optics. “That and all 151 variants including one me and Tailgate made up called “Hide the gearshift.”

 

You think you hear a muffled scream just outside her room, followed by a dull thud, but you can’t be certain over the sound of your own panicked shrieking.

 

“ _WHAT?!”_

 

She recoils in surprise. “All we do is hide scrap from Ratchet’s lab and make the other one find it. It doesn’t even have to be a gearshift. You just have to put it back before he finds out it’s missing. Like once we took his photon inhibitor and he got _real_ mad-”

 

“I…nevermind.” you say, holding up your hand and pinching the bridge of your nose. _Breathe, just breathe._ “It’s like hide and seek. _Normal_ hide and seek.” you stress. “But for adults.”

 

She blinks, cocking her helm to the side in an eerily birdlike fashion before her expressions changes, optics glowing from the metaphorical light bulb going off in her head.

 

“Oh!” she says finally, excitedly clapping her servos together. “Does this have something to do with the new sparkling?”

 

Your jaw drops. Your mind goes blank.

 

“What.” you say flatly.

 

“I was talking to dad the other day about how nice it would be to have someone to fly with when I’m old enough, y’know, since Tailgate isn’t a flight frame, and that I’ve been waiting for a little brother or sister for a really long time now, and he said hopefully that things would be different soon.”

 

You open and close your mouth several times, hoping that the words to correctly address this situation will come magically come tumbling out.

 

“Ffffff….”

 

Close enough.

 

“And you’ve never once mentioned this to me _why?”_ you say, once you’ve recovered from a near motor-cortex shut down and regained your language capabilities.

 

She shuffles her pedes, helm tilted meekly to the ground.

 

“I didn’t want to look weak.” she says plainly. “All that mushy stuff about wanting a little sibling to hold and play with and teach stuff sounds so _pathetic._ So I never said anything. But now that I know it might happen, I just…” she pauses, looking up at you, “It’ll be nice not being lonely anymore.”

 

You blink.

 

O-kaaaaay. Starscream trying to spark you in yet another bid for dominance in the neverending power struggle that is your relationship is one thing. Blackbird telling you she actually _wants_ a sibling is _whole ‘nother ballpark._

 

Somewhere between her wide, doeful optics and heartfelt honesty you feel something snap. Your heart melts and your resolves shatters in perfect synchronicity. Starscream might be a cold, conniving bastard only interested in reproducing to feed his insatiable ego, but Blackbird’s want is genuine. And what kind of monster would you be to say no to those _completely out of character_ sad droopy wings and puppy dog eyes?

 

Wait.

 

_Wait._

 

“How much did he pay you to say that?”

 

Blackbird blinks.

 

“Say what?”

 

“That perfectly scripted sob story.” you say, feeling the estrogen drain from your brain to be replaced by sweet unleaded _logic._ “What did he bribe you with?”

 

“ _Bribe_ me?” she scoffs, indignation heavy in her voice. “I open up my spark to you and you accuse me of accepting coercion?”

 

_Like a fucking echo. “_ Blackbird, honey, I love you, I really do.” you say, grabbing her by her shoulder plating and looking her square in the optic. “But you are  _every bit_ as terrible at lying as your father is.” You take a deep breath, eye twitching furiously. “Now, I want you to be completely honest with me :  _What did he give you?”_

 

Her well-practiced puppy-dog visage is instantly replaced by a scowl.

 

“Three thousand USD and a year’s supply of rust sticks.”

 

 

 

_Shit._ Your eye twitches, and you feel your jaw threaten to drop, but don’t’ give into the draw of bewilderment this time. You’re not surprised. Considering who you’re dealing with, this probably isn’t even the most underhanded affair he’d orchestrated in the past thirty minutes. Hell you‘re not even  _mad_ , and if you’re being honest with yourself, you’re mostly just frustrated that he got to her before you did.

 

What you are is _suffering._ Because it’s not like you spent the last 24 hours in the air ducts wistfully reliving your days terrorizing your classmates with venomous insects(not all of it, at least) No, you’d spent it hyperaware of the fact that there was an angry, seething, carnally enraged seeker prowling the corridors beneath you high on robot pheromones and his own twisted sense of pride _hunting you like a rat_ and _why god why_ does that turn you on _so bad._

 

Yes, you’d had plenty of time to lay there and reevaluate your life choices. Time to work yourself into a self-hating sexual fury, time to experience the worst case of blue bean this side of the multiverse, time to wonder if _maybe it wouldn’t be that bad_ and pick out inappropriate avian-based sparkling names, and even time left over to feel disgusted with yourself afterwards.

 

“Please tell me he paid you up front.” you say finally.

 

She breaks character long enough to raise an optical ridge at you in a subtle but clear _“we both know he’d never do that.”_ manner

 

“Rust sticks before, money afterwards.”

 

Of course. He’d never be that shortsighted. You knew better all along, but you still feel stupid for hoping. Because you’re in the lion’s den right now. There’s no getting past her, not with that look that’s supercharging your already radioactive ovaries. That neotenic, watery-eyed-cybertronian equivalent of Bambi that could probably have made Megatron spontaneously lactate. You wonder if that look works on Starscream. It probably does. It’s probably how she weaseled 3000 USD into the agreement on top of the sticks.

 

“What would you even _do_ with that much money?” you ask weakly, making a mental note to investigate exactly _how the fuck_ Starscream managed to get a hold of any kind of earth currency to begin with.

 

She shrugs. “More aquariums. Maybe a small cryogenic freezer. The one in your lab smells like-”

 

“Shame and bad decisions.” you finish for her, dizzily leaning against the wall, reeling because even though you should be used to her playing DIY genetics in her room instead of house like a normal little girl she’s _still a kid._

 

And that’s when it dawns on you, that’s genius IQ and propensity for playing god or no, she is still, in fact, a _kid._

 

“Alright.” you say, inhaling deeply. “I’m going to level with you. If you stop making that face _right this second_ I’ll help you design a holomatter avatar and take you to Disneyland.”

 

Blackbird blinks. You hold your breath.

 

“Disneyland?” she asks.

 

“Disneyland.” you repeat flatly. “Y’know, the second happiest place on earth?”

 

“What’s the first happiest?”

 

“ _Sandwiched between Starscream and Shockwave like a space-age pannini.”_ you cough into your hand. _“_ Do we have a deal or not?”

 

Blackbird blinks. Blackbird cocks her head.

 

Blackbird starts _shrieking._

 

“OH MY GOD DISNEYLAND!” she squeals as you plug your ears shut. “I’M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!”

 

“Yes, you are.” you shout as plainly as you can over her screaming, recovering from a moderate amount of shock because _holy shit that actually worked._

 

“I’m bringing Tailgate!”

 

“Sure.”

 

“I’m bringing Ratchet and Raf!”

 

“Good luck with that.”

 

“I’m bringing Blueberry Spicehead and St3ve and all 50,000 of their eggs!”

 

You open your mouth to disagree, but think better of it. She can bring freaking _Seaworld_ with her for all you care as long as she holds up her end of the bargain.

 

“Just remember-” you place a hand on her shoulder, making the most serious, intimidating expression you can twist your squishy human face into. “No more insincere bull scrap about sparklings, no more _making that face_ , and _absolutely_ no accepting bribes from your father or the deal’s off. Do you understand?”

 

She narrows her optics. “Do I get to keep the rust sticks?”

 

“You get to keep the rust sticks.”

 

She throws up her servos in triumph. She cheers, but not so loudly you have to cover your ears this time, and that’s when the muffled scream from earlier makes a second appearance, followed by the distinctive, ear-piercing screech of talons against the metal of the hab suite door.

 

The corners of your mouth twitch. You smile. You start giggling, which turns into the kind of full-blown manic laughter that only comes after you narrowly avoid falling into one of your asshole consort’s many ploys.

 

You fall against the wall. Starscream’s on the other side, and if you tried you could probably hear him gritting his denta in rage. You try _not_ to think about the face he’s making, bitter and furious and _hotter than slag,_ try _not_ to think about the cocktail of human and alien hormones coursing through your veins and impacting your critical thinking. Try _not_ to imagine the nice outline your body would make punched into reinforced steel if you simply walked out into the hallway and let him _fuck you into the floor._

 

You know it’s just a matter of time. You’re going to crack eventually. But not until you’ve watched your consort exhaust every conceivable option to make a giant aft out of himself.

 

 

“Not today asshole.” you mutter under your breath. “Not today.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Pls enjoy.

It's day number three of your hellish cat and mouse game.

 

Blackbird, Tailgate, Ratchet, Raf and presumably both octopi and all fifty thousand of their eggs had gone to Disneyland, hopefully utilizing their holoforms. If not, you're sure you'll hear about it in the news. Starscream's attempts to woo you waver between well-thought out, albeit poorly researched human romantic tropes- (He knew human females enjoyed chocolate, and had somehow procured several tons of raw unprocessed cacao beans) - and bouts of pure animalistic fury.

 

He'd nearly torn the pantry door off to get at you during your second, and last attempt to secure yourself some fuel that wasn't expired by at least three millennia, forcing you to scramble into the air duct, run to what you hoped was the opposite end of the ship, tumble out unceremoniously into the bridge and immediately change the password so he couldn't get in.

 

Luckily, you'd found some some emergency rations that probably pre-date human civilization in a compartment under the veiwscreen. It's chalky and crumbles upon contact with skin and has a faint glow when shielded from the light, but it's honestly not that bad. Heck, it's s pretty much astronaut icecream, except without any sugar or dairy or earth-based materials and probably shares more nutritional similarities with a used glowstick then fragging _ice cream._

 

 

You miss ice cream. You miss pizza. You miss being able to walk around in your own home without fear of being assaulted by a reproductive-minded ego-maniacal airplane in his latest bid for recognition and fame.

 

“ _Maybe not the last one._ ” you think, biting off another chunk of the UV reactive foodstuffs that, now that you think about it, kind of tastes like stale PEZ candy. You wonder if pre-war cybertron had the rough equivalent of PEZ dispensers and other mass produced, cartoon character endorsed, inside-rotting confectionery. They probably did. Probably lost them under giant alien reclining chairs or shoved them inside giant alien ziplock baggies inside giant alien drawers thinking they could sell them on alien ebay someday.

 

When you get down to it, the similarities between your two cultures are so infinite in expanse it's stupid. Like how datapads, a device they'd been using for aeons written in alien programming language using algorithms that would make any seasoned code monkey shit themselves, are essentially smartphones. And how said devices by default came with games that, while devised before the sleeping titan that formed the core of your planet had spawned the microscopic building blocks of life, are almost exact replicas of Frogger, Cubert, and Tetris. The last of which played a simple animation of a minicon playing a metal violin upon winning.

 

Which you'd seen five times already. You lean back in your chair, about to set the pad down, weighing the amount of dignity you'd have to swallow to beg one of the autobots to rescue you for the afternoon against the amount of dignity it would take to actually _kill you_ when you hear the soft _blip_ of a message notification.

 

You hesitate, pad halfway between your lap and the floor. You'd been ignoring all messages for the past ten or so hours since you'd locked yourself in here, on account of Starscream flooding your inbox with ill-contrived reasons he needed immediate access to the bridge of a completely nonfunctional sptarship. (“The check engine light came on” had been among them.) then with _demands_ to be let onto the bridge. Then with insults. Then, after three hour pause, sparkling pictures of Blackbird.

 

Not just any old pictures either. He'd meticulously selected only the most eye-watering, lib trembling, Oxycontin-producing portraits of your beloved hellspawn in existence. Blackbird curled up sleeping under one of your hoodies, Blackbird yawning in your arms after being fed(which happened to included one of your tits flopping out from your unbuttoned shirt, real christmas-card material), Blackbird dolling out death from above to an unfortunate arachnid, Blackbird biting Starscream's pede _really_ hard.

 

He'd gone up a level, there's no disputing that. And it _worked_ . Fresh tears of maternal bliss sprung from your eyes as you cradled the pad against your chest and softly recited warbly out-of-key lullabies. You'd felt an not-entirely unpleasant burst of _something_ roll down your spine, followed shortly by the sensation of an ice-cold egg being broken over your neck.

 

After the three or so second delay it took for the static pulse to reach him, the screaming had begun. Not the whining, high pitched shrieks you're most accustomed to but low, guttural, _bestial_ snarling followed by the ear-splitting sound of metal piercing metal and the deafening _thud_ of what you largely suspected was the rest of the pantry door being torn out of one wall and thrown into the adjacent one.

 

You find your attention split three ways between recovering from a near-fatal estrogen attack, amusement (and hopeless arousal) at your consort's carnal rage, and relief that Blackbird isn't home to experience the raunchier side of her dysfunctional family because as it is you three are a couch gag and musical number away from a sitcom.

 

So you blocked him. And had begun playing cybetronian Tetris. _Swing and a miss, fucker._ But now you're hopelessly bored of cybertronian Tetris. And Cubert. And you'd never gotten past the first level of Frogger, and said boredom compels you to check the message, fully expecting another punch to the ovaries and subsequently the loss of yet another door.

 

The message is from the autobots.

 

More specifically, the generic but secure email from earth's HQ. It's official purpose is to allow easy communication between the autobots and government officials (i.e. Fowler's “superiors” But since then had become a reliable means of communication between the human members of team prime and the bots, and had come to function as a party line in addition to it's original purpose.

 

It's an emergency.

 

It's also time-sensitive and top secret and almost looks like whoever had sent it had slapped on every label for “READ ME RIGHT THIS FUCKING SECOND” in a blind panic. It's also, curiously, only addressed to you.

 

“ _It's not Shockwave.”_

 

At least, that's what you tell yourself as tendrils of cold fear squirm in your chest.

 

The formatting should be a red flag, but you remind yourself that both Ratchet and Raf had taken the day off, Optimus was currently back on cybertron for some sort of presentation and whoever was left to hold down the fort is nowhere near as accustomed to the equipment as they were. That doesn't mean they were hacked, right?

A bot could've fat fingered it. A human could've tripped doing the necessary keyboard hopscotch to send it. The possibilities are endless.

 

_Totally not Shockwave._

 

So you open it, breath baited as it loads, crossing your fingers that it's just your run of the mill mass-casualty-causing natural disaster or interplanetary deceleration of war and not a certain rouge decepticon mad scientist in possession of extremely compromising-life-ruining security footage.

 

_Please don't be Shockwave_

 

It's a picture. A dark, slightly out of focus picture of a tall, cylindrical object with glowing lights adorning the sides in an almost ferally-ornate fashion that tapers off to a soft curve near the top. You swallow hard, eyes narrowed, heart racing, trying to identify exactly _what_ manner of life-ruining device this is and how they got it into your bedroom without you noticing and is that part of a stilettho and-

 

It's a spike.

 

Starscream, it seems, having received no feedback from his previous ploy, had switched tactics. And in doing so, unwittingly reinforced the idea that your species had experienced near flawless parallel evolution, if not within a few millennia of each other, by engaging in a well-known-poorly-recived-all-too-human mating behavior : Sending dick pics.

 

He's reclining in the berth, back arched, legs coyly bent together at the knees, frame bent in a probably-not-that-comfortable catlike pose in an effort to fit the entirety of himself into the picture. The arm not holding the datapad is draped over his helm, partially obscuring his face in shadow, leaving only one visible half lidded crimson optic and the corner of a smug vainglorious smirk.

 

There's cybertronian text at the bottom, which roughly translates to “u shuld b on dis.” complete with terrible grammar.

 

A normal, self respecting human female would have rolled her eyes, scoffed in disgust, and thrown the device across the room. You are about as far removed from all three of those things as you can get. So you begin drooling and breathing heavily and making tentative plans to have this image immortalized as an oil painting or marble sculpture because _oh my god_ _he is fucking art._

 

Your hand is down your pants faster than you can scream the five syllable password to unlock the door(Cooter withholdings) but thank Primus you've been gifted with the strength to stop yourself at the last second. You might be an easily manipulated pile of sexually charged goo, but right now you're also a fertile, _ovulating_ pile of goo and you're not about to suffer nine months of bio-luminescent vomit and migraines strong enough to take down a metrotitan again. Not yet. _Not today._

 

No. What you _are_ going to do is completely _wreck_ yourself to this playmech centerfold material your loving consort had so thoughtfully provided you with.

 

And you're going to _let him know you did._

 

So you slip out of your lab coat. You take your shirt off. You unclasp your bra, slide your shorts down to your knees, slide your panties almost, _almost_ off your ass, slip your labcoat back on, fix your hair, then, thinking better of it, mess up your hair.

 

And then you go to fucking town.

 

It's not the same. Good, but not the same. The hands on your breasts aren't icy cold and the fingers strumming your nipples aren't talons and no amount of fingers you can coax into yourself can replace the impossible fullness of his spike but it doesn't matter. Your body is a smorgasbord and you are a half-starved hungover casino patron and you are going to try everything until you are physically ill or you pass out at the silverware station.

 

Your orgasms suck. You knew they would, because they weren't given to you by a pheromonally enraged warbird but more importantly they take the edge off, and you can think clearly now. Clearly enough to catch your breath, use the camera function to take a good look at your flushed, sweat covered thoroughly self-spent body and then, satisfied with what you see, take a picture. And send it to Starscream using the very same email he hacked into, though not before hastily writing a response in cybertronian.

 

You're not deluding yourself. The sight of your naked body isn't enough to bump Starscream's sexual frustration into sexual _suffering,_ but the message it sends does.

 

“ _Ur not getting any of this.”_

 

You sigh. A happy, smug as hell self-satisfied kind of sigh at the suffering you hope you'd caused. Some far off part of you wonders if this is what it feels like to be Starscream, but the endorphins and the post-orgasmic haze prevent you from any Freudian attempts to analyze it further. You find yourself giddily re-reading the emails from beginning to end, just to admire your handiwork.

 

And find yourself trying not to have a heart attack when you realize, during your last-second amendment to add the text, you'd accidentally clicked “reply all.”

 

It takes a moment for the reality to set in. After all, sending the entirety of team prime a naked picture of not only Starscream but yourself is something that would only happen in a sitcom. You laugh at first. A “teehee I messed up” kind of laugh that turns into a nervous “This is probably pretty bad” kind of laugh that ends in a “I am totally and completely fucked” manic laughter along with the realization that _this is exactly what it feels like to be Starscream._

 

Not that you're ashamed of your body. You look damn good for having pushed out a tiny metal death machine that's now taller than you, and Starscream's body, aside from being a literal weapon, is also a _figurative_ weapon. Honestly, they should be _thanking you,_ not possibly reconsidering their decision to allow you both full custody of your daughter on account of terrible parenting and just being overall awful people.

 

Logically, you know that's not enough to make them recant their decision. But you're not Shockwave. What you are is _afraid_ of Shockwave and his compromising footage existing somewhere in this universe and your nude shit-talking session would just be the cherry on the shit sunday.

 

What you need is damage control. Right now the best you can think of is sending a separate email to everyone detailing a communications mishap, that the previous email contains a virus, please don't open it and also send confirmation that you _didn't_ open it just to be safe. Please and thank you. It sounds like bullshit. It _is_ bullshit but it's the best you've got right now.

 

You keep your fingers crossed as you hastily get re-dressed. Much to your relief and disbelief, one by one the notifications come through promising they hadn't opened with it, though some voicing their concern about it's contents. Raf asks you to contact him about it later when he's not busy. Ratchet tells you to be more careful. Optimus says nothing, but he always keeps everything but his wideband powered down during meetings, so you're not too concerned.

 

There's only two you haven't heard back from. After an agonizing several minutes Arcee replies with a picture of her servo with the middle finger extended. You're guessing she opened it. That leaves just one bot.

 

***

 

“Which brings us to section 378, where we once again reference _“A practical approach to inter species conduct”_ for a illustrated a guide on how to greet humans without accidentally propositioning them for sexual favors.”

 

The guide is just stick figures. Professional, streamlined, stickfigures, the kind seen universally on CAUTION and HAZARD signs, but stickfigures nonetheless. Miko had offered to give them more detail. Considering the subject matter, Ultra Magnus had politely, vehemently declined.

 

Were it up to him, he wouldn't have asked her for help. In fact, he wouldn't have hosted a mandatory panel for all earthbound autobots, both those who had resided there for some time and those to be newly stationed there for postwar operations. But after the alarming amount of hybrids that had cropped up in the past seven years (three) He saw no other option but to educate his fellow cybertronians on proper conduct with the inhabitants of the first planet in their postwar alliance.

 

By holding a long, boring meeting which basically boiled down to “Don't have sex with them.”

 

Smokescreen, unsurprisingly, raises his servo for what was probably only the third but felt like the billionth time that day. Magnus pinches the bridge between his helm and optical ridges.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Okay, so, looking at this cartoon.”

 

“Guide, Smokescreen, it's a _guide-”_

 

“Looking at this _guide_ , it looks like all we have to do to properly greet humans is _not_ run around with our valves open and spikes flopping out?”

 

The “guide”, which is exactly two panels in length, details a large, boxy stick(clearly representing a cybertronian) person leaning down to shake hands with a smaller slim stick person(the human) with a “YES” in large bold print underneath, signaling this was the correct way to address humans. The next panel features the same two characters, though the mech is sporting an obscenely oversized phallus and the human is bending over, with a bold “NO” beneath them.

 

“The issue is far more complicated than that.” he continues once he's regained his composure, and made a mental note never to accept graphical design help from a human ever again.

 

“So, if I'm getting this straight, the humans find us absolutely irresistible and will totally jump our frames at any given opportunity?” Smokescreen goes on. “I mean, I don't get me wrong, I was getting some seriously good vibes back on earth, but I didn't know they were _those_ kinda vibes.”

 

“The issue isn't whether or not the humans want to interface with us-” and he has to stop himself from shuddering at that thought. “It's that they _can_ , and that against all odds they can become genetically compatable with us after long term energon exposure, and this has lead to several unplanned carrying cycles and hybrids. The purpose of this panel which is to educate about the dangers of unprotected interfacing and to prevent further accidental occurrences.”

 

“So shouldn't Ratchet be teaching this class?” pipes Bumblebee. Of course. His vocalizer had been defunct for so long he'd forgotten how obnoxious he could be. Innocently obnoxious, but still _obnoxious._

 

“He's currently undercover chaperoning a human and two of the aforementioned hybrids at a human amusement park.”

 

“A what?”

 

“Disneyland.” Jazz speaks up unexpectedly, prompting the heads of several perplexed autobots to turn his way.

 

“You've been?” Bumblebee asks excitedly.

 

“No. He says flatly. “But I heard it's the second happiest place on earth.”

 

Bee blinks. “What's the first?”

 

Jazz goes deadly quiet. Bumblebee doesn't press further. But Smokescreen, wonderful, reliable _Smokescreen_ is not to be deterred, and raises another servo.

 

“So yeah, like, back to the subject.”

 

“Do you even know what the subject _was?”_ he finally blurts out in exasperation.

 

“Not sparking humans.”And if that look of complete and utter _smug_ on his face isn't already illegal he is going to _find a way to criminalize it._ “Shouldn't we be actively trying to do the _opposite?_ I mean the 'cons have got us outnumbered two to one.”

 

Ultra Magnus ex-vents. “Let me remind you, for the third time this _cycle_ , that there are no more _“cons””_ he emphasizes with finger quotes. _“-_ And that using language like that is only inhibiting the integration process of our fellow cybertronians.”

 

“Yeah, but, like, if there were, we'd still be losing.”

 

“Smokescreen makes a fair point.” and _nonono_ it's Optimus speaking up and of _course_ it's Optimus because he's the one bot in the room he can't _reprimand for any reason ever._

 

“See?” Smokescreen jabs his thumbs in the Prime's direction after a moment, no doubt having just recovered from a fanboy-induced near motor cortex shutdown. “Just because the war's over doesn't mean we have to let them walk all over us.”

 

“I was referring to the less judgmental half of your statement.” And the expression of utter disappointment cascading down Smokescreen's face is almost enough to make Ultra Magnus _not_ regret assembling this presentation. Two more of those and he might actually be _enjoying himself._ “As it stands, with the Well inactive and the femmes's numbers still devastatingly low amongst our kind, the long term survivability of our species is not certain. The discovery that we are not only able to reproduce with humankind, but that the resulting offspring inherits almost entirely cybertronian genetics is nothing short of a miracle. I would, in fact, highly endorse more research into this area, provided both parties are fully informed and consenting.”

 

Magnus, try as he may, cannot prevent his processor from conjuring an image of his esteemed leader engaging in reproductive behaviors with a human. He briefly considers gouging his optics out. He had once nearly died rescuing a cassette from being fed to a captive sharkticon during an undercover stint in a kaonian oilhouse only to wake up strapped down on a vivisection table with his actuator and t-cog missing, and it still doesn't come anywhere _close_ to the betrayal he feels seeing Optimus Prime promote inter species relationships with organics.

 

He feels dizzy. The nearest seat is at least ten steps away and bolted to the floor. He can't leave the podium anyways. He also can't leave Smokescreen's inquiry, no matter how profane, undressed, because that would be unprofessional. He can't leave Optimus's addition to said inquiry unaddressed either, nor can he disagree with him because it's _Optimus_ and _why did it have to be Optimus._

 

It's been almost thirty seconds since anyone's said anything. Everyone's optics are on him. Smokescreen is fidgeting in his seat. Jazz might honestly be alseep. Ironhide looks bored and bored Ironhide's MO is disassembling/cleaning/polishing volatile weaponry or taking pot-shots with a silencer and rubber bullets and all of those things are _bad news._

 

Primus help him, what he needs is a distraction. And when the sharp _beep_ of a message notification from his datapad pierces the awkward silence he swears he hears far off heavenly choirs singing. He exvents deep in relief, about to temporarily disable the projector function, but hesitates when he sees the string of urgent warnings in the email field.

 

“Is something wrong?” Optimus asks, optical ridges knitted in concern.

 

“It's the earth base in Jasper.” he says. “And it's an emergency.”

 

A symphony of gasping, shuffling, and bot's trying desperately to pretend they hadn't been sliding into recharge sweeps the room. Ironhide knocks over the container of lubricant he'd been cleaning with. Smokescreen, in his haste to stand up, slips in the resulting puddle and smashes his helm-face-first into the table. Ultra Magnus is almost having a good day.

 

“Show us the message.” Optimus says.

 

There's a delay. Considering how many galaxy's away from earth they currently are, thirty seconds is nothing. But with the entire room collectively holding their breath it seems like an eternity. A collective sigh of relief is expelled as the images finish loading.

 

Followed by a collective, resounding scream.

 

Several mechs, including Smokescreen, threaten to gouge their optics out. For the first time Magnus feels a twinge of kinship for the younger bot, though optics or no, he's pretty sure the image of Starscream's fully erect spike is burned into his memory forever. Bumblebee is purging. Prowl is purging. Ironhide has pulled out a flask and is draining it with his optics closed. Wheeljack had beaten him by several seconds and is now covering his helm with both servos, swearing softly under his breath.

 

And Optimus is laughing. Silently, doubled over, and with his helm resting on the edge of the table but still _laughing._ Laughing so hard his optics are lubricating and his entire frame shakes from the effort of containing himself. Magnus isn't sure if that's a win or a loss, but he can't concentrate on that right now. Because at least three mechs in the back are wolf-whistling and one femme is loudly demanding the image be sent to her. His mind swims. His species started a war that nearly destroyed two planets and he's pretty sure he's never been more disappointed in them than he is right this second.

 

But then Jazz speaks up.

 

“Scroll down.”

 

The room goes silent. Mostly. There's still retching and the femme is now demanding poster-sized printouts. Ultra Magnus opens and closes his mouth several times.

 

“What?”

 

“There's another picture.” Jazz says plainly. “Keep scrolling down.”

 

Magnus looks helplessly at Optimus, who's still face down on the table wheezing. He puts his servo up, then lets it weakly fall back down. He doesn't know what that means.

 

 

He looks back at Jazz. He hasn't wavered, arms folded squarely across his chassis.

 

Magnus has never made a “Do I have to?” face before. Had he known the occasion would ever arise he would've spent time practicing in the mirror, because he's pretty sure he's just grimacing at Jazz with really wide optics and it's not working.

 

So he complies. Servos shaking, bile rising in his intake, he turns back to the pad and swipes down, praying silently to the Primes that by some miracle the following image isn't another softcore pinup tier self portrait of a certain air commander.

 

His prayers are answered, and then promptly spat on.

 

_It's worse._

 

It's a human. A _naked_ human. _Starscream's_ naked human. Consort, to be specific. Except he doesn't need to be specific because out of the few humans he'd met and dealt with (y/n) is the only who comes close to exhibiting Starscream's level of debauchery. At the very least, it seems, the conversation was intended to be private, since the following message sent by her was a desperate plea not to open the previous one, under the dubious guise of it containing a virus of some sort. It's a hamfisted attempt at decency, but an attempt nonetheless, and that's how Magnus consoles himself as he fights to keep his knee-joints from giving out under him.

 

There's more retching. Magnus catches Ironhide stealthily slip his flask into Optimus's servo under the table. The femme is demanding posters of both. There's another wolf whistle.

 

From _Jazz_.

 

“So that's a human femme huh?” he says, folding his arms behind his helm as he leans back into his seat. “Not bad. Maybe Smokey and Prime are onto somethin'.”

 

There's a finite amount of shock, disgust, and disappointment any one bot could have coursing through their veins in any given day. Ultra Magnus had reached his limit several kliks ago, and has to fight through a smile at this blissful revelation to place a situation-appropriate scowl of disapproval on his face before his system shorts out entirely, and he goes crashing to the floor.

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello yes please excuse my totally AU headcanons about Vos and seekers and shit thx
> 
> This thing is a hot mess I am so sorry.

  
It's day four.  
  
You sit inside the bulkhead, body draped in an imperfect V between two missiles, which, (to the best of your estimations),had long since been deactivated. Your back is killing you, your neck is killing you and you can't tell if the pounding in the back of your head is from one of Starscream's increasingly violent fits of carnal rage echoing down through the ship or because you've probably only slept a collective ten minutes for the past three days.  
  
_"Probably carnal rage."_ You think, one hand holding a fistful of the ration squares you’d discovered yesterday, the other folded uncomfortably above your head holding your data pad. You'd probably have a blood clot by now if you still had veins, and if you continue with your contortionist regime you're sure the energon coursing through what's left of your circulatory system would probably find a way to clog up and cause serious health issues too.  
  
For now, however, your health concerns are shunned to the back of your mind, along with the gravity of your current situation. Ultra Magnus had just recently posted a report on the mandatory “Guide to proper interspecies conduct” and subsequently filed a request to have your risque’ shit-talking session added to the list of “known interplanetary incidents”. You're no Helen of Troy, but you find the implication that your tits have the power to incite political unrest deeply flattering. Or, you would, if you weren't laughing so hard you're in tears.  
  
You wonder if the humor will be lost on your consort. Probably not. He's quite capable of humor when he wants to be but it would serve to feed his bloated ego nonetheless and there'll be no living with him. Or, more accurately, even less living with him, considering you'd spent the last week evading him like a trapped rat.  
   
You'd been forced out of the bridge last night. Your spiteful selfie had it's intended effect, he'd marched himself right up to the door and had shrieked probably about three hundred variations of “whore" in fifty different languages. ( _Most_ of them alien.) You remained decidedly un-wooe'd, and when his demands were met with apathetic silence he had proceeded to punch the door hard enough to drive his claws through. Considering the door in question was at least twelve inches of solid titanium it had taken every ounce of self control you had not to piss yourself.  
  
And then, reserves of self-control thoroughly depleted, and having been begrudgingly impressed by the display, you'd given yourself over to complete and utter arousal, which had triggered another static pulse. You had just enough time to tear the cover off another duct and jump in before he punched a seeker-sized hole in the door.  
  
There, shaking, panting, you'd resigned yourself to spending yet another night in the ventilation system until Starscream had the brilliant notion to actually _turn the AC on._ Which had the consequence of not only cooling the surrounding metal to a nippy -15 degrees Fahrenheit, but the resulting gush of air had nearly flung you face-first into the razor sharp (you could only assume, it was a decepticon vessel, after all)fan blades. You'd avoided mutilation by stretching your body spread-eagle at the end of the duct and waiting until the vacuum had torn your lab coat off, which had jammed the propeller and triggered an automatic shutoff of the entire system.  
  
You'd sworn under your breath, thanked Primus he hadn't thought to turn the heat on, then promptly cursed him for making you enough of a genetic dead-end to be turned on by being _chased like a fucking hamster through a krittertrail habitat._  
  
But at least your mutation/evolution/cyborgdom hadn't granted you race specific C.N.A, considering what you'd heard about seeker femmes in heat. You’re turned on, yes, you’re sexually fustraited enough to power a small solar system, you’re a verifiable bull mastif bitch in season. But you’re also fairly certain your need is less from your cross-species bio chemical changes and more from being mentally deficient in every area other than “petty revenge science.” You’re not turned on because of brain secretions, you’re turned on because you’re a _freak._    And though you trust those very secretions to tell you your cool logic has triumphed over hormones, You still make a mental note to begin working on a convenient pharmaceutical equivalent of a cold shower to spray, inject, or pop under your tongue for the next time this situation inevitably occurred. And to reinforce Blackbird's room with something stronger than titanium at least a decade before she hits robot puberty.  
  
So you'd slept with the missiles, riding on the hopeful-but-probably-naive assumption that your consort wasn't insane enough to launch them in a last-ditch measure to nurse his injured pride. (You'd remotely deactivated them via your datapad anyways, just to be safe)  
  
And that's where you find yourself now, lazily browsing the datapad with one hand, shoving the rest of a chalky, sickly green ration square in your mouth with the other.  
  
_The last ration square_. You realize as the pit drops out of the bottom of your stomach. Going days without the washrack and on minimal sleep were unpleasant, but survivable. Sexual torture is seamlessly interwoven into your daily routine, considering you live with Starscream. But energon is different. Your weird mutant body will _die_ without energon, and as the fact that you'd gone half a week without normal sustenance sinks in you're hit with the strongest craving you'd ever had for what you'd best describe to another human as a carbonated alcoholic milkshake.  
  
You're hungry. Starscream likely suspects you are, and is probably laying in wait in the mess hall, assuming he hadn't already rigged several dozen traps to do the job for him while he waxed his wings or sharpened his claws like the paltry fuck he is.  
  
Fortunately for you, in your bid to beef up security during your  paranoid "Shockwave is going to ruin our lives" phase you'd also given yourself access to all of the security feeds via your datapad. You pull up all three hundred or so windows, and begin the tedious search to find which one of the teeny windows would provide you with the whereabouts of your pissed off partner. You’re already prepping yourself for disappointment, expecting to see him standing guard near the pantry, but disappointment gives way sweet albeit confused relief when you find him nowhere on the ship.  
  
Cautious elation rises in your chest, but it stays cautious. It's completely possible that during the brief period of time you actually experienced recharge he'd left the ship to blow off some steam by flying or wiping a small farming community off the map and had yet to come back. It's not totally out of character for him to take to the skies when he needed to think, and considering he'd run out of ideas to romance/forcibly impregnate/smoke you out of hiding half a day ago, it's not just a possibility, it's a probability.  
  
You want it to be true, are so preciously close to deciding that it _is_ true, and scan the feeds from the other cameras to feed your bias. The lab is clear. The washracks are clear, the bridge door does in fact have a hole roughly Starscream's height punched out of it.(You feel a surge to your nether regions, then promptly punch yourself in the jaw) St3v3 and Blueberry Spicehead lazily climb the sides of their take while the remains of a crab floats in circles around the waterline.  
  
You've made up your mind. You're going to make a break for it.  
  
You've just finished squeezing yourself back into the munitions hall when the soft "beep" of a notification from your datapad tears through the silence.  
  
It’s a message. From Blackbird.  
  
_“You should have come with us lol have fun with your weird game.”_  
  
She’s attached several pictures, including herself, Tailgate, Ratchet and Raf(the former three utilizing their respective holomatter avatars) at Disneyland. One of Tailgate with two french fries shoved up his nose, one of Raf and herself on a rollarcoaster, one of Raf puking in a garbage can after the rollarcoaster, one of her strangling an employee in a Donald Duck costume, and finally a shot of her two beloved octopi in a travel tank with a stupid Mickey mouse hat on top. All of the pictures feature Ratchet in the background, who seems to be trying his absolute _damndest_ to look like he’s not enjoying himself.  
  
You’re heart melts a little. You sigh,  relishing the maternal longing blossoming in your chest until it hits you.  
  
You swipe back to the security feeds, select Blackbird’s room, and zoom in on the tank  
  
 Both octopi are there.  
  
You swipe back to the last picture in the set she’d sent you.  
  
Both octopi are there.  
  
_Sent 1 minute ago._  
  
Starscream had looped the footage. It’s no longer a live feed.  
  
He could be _anywhere._  
  
That’s scary. That’s scary and clever and honestly exactly what you’d expect of him and you feel ashamed for not anticipating this move. But you’re also extremely _hungry_ so you’re ready to throw caution to the wind and get some fucking food in yourself before you’re too weak to continue your hamster crawl and die up here where your mummified corpse will be extracted hundreds of years later by confused and disgusted historians or more likely next week by Starscream who may or may not actually feel bad.  
  
You might not have a live feed, but you still do have blueprints, so you bring them up, and look for the quickest route to the master quarters. It’s a bold move but it’s also the last place he’d expect you, and he does keep a stash of cubes under the berth to chase the highgrade he takes after nightmares, (which have increased gradually after the entire Shockwave fiasco) It’s a risky bet but it’s also your best bet so you shove your data opad back into you pocket and shimmy down the pathway as fast as you can, unscrew the vent cover and unceremoniously plop down into the first wide open space you’d seen in over 72 hours.  
  
You feel a little agoraphobic but it’s not enough to deter you, and you run as fast as your tiny legs will take you across the room, slide Indiana-Jones-style under the berth, drag a cube out with Herculean effort, and use both fists and most of your upper body strength to puncture the protective seal.  
  
You once again find yourself sorely missing human food. Not so much for the taste, (a distant memory that grew fuzzier with each passing year, as evidenced by the fact you could no long distinguish fresh cookies from the sheet they were baked on) but because if you could eat human food, you could have just ordered a pizza. Or chinese food. Or really anywhere that’s willing to deliver to the remains of an alien spaceship somewhere in the american northwest hundreds of miles from civilization in any direction.  
  
Or not.  You can ponder that later, after you’ve finished drinking, which you’ll have to do fast, considering there’s no way you can take it with you back into the ducts.  Starscream’s stash comes in the standard cybertronian measurements and the cubes are roughly the size and height of a hot tub, so you have to brace yourself against the edge, lower your head in, and carefully lap it up with your tongue, lending you the appearance of a barnyard animal at a feed trough. But that’s okay. Dignity is for people that sleep at least six hours and don’t reproduce with airplanes.  
  
  
“There’s over a hundred slurs involving livestock and unsavory human females in your native language _alone._ ” comes a cool, amused voice from behind you “Honestly, (y/n), I’m almost remiss you haven’t given me the opportunity to come up with more creative insults, considering your perchance for setting yourself up.”  
  
You freeze. You choke on your last gulp and cough so hard energon comes out your nose.    
  
“Over a hundred huh?” you ask, wiping your mouth, not bothering to look over your shoulder. “You got any about deepthroating chickens? Because I get the feeling I’m about to choke on a cock.”  
  
He laughs, deep and velvety and couched in relief, the “ _I’ve won and I know it_ ” kind of relief that makes it almost a sigh. “That’s a pun, not a slur.”  
  
“Don’t you grammer police me you asshat.” you say shakily, beyond anger as you finally turn around. He’s already mass displaced himself down to nigh-human size and has a _no more bullshit_ look on his face. “Either make a dirty joke at my expense or don’t.”  
  
“Very well. What do you and a tract of land intended for agricultural use have in common?”  
  
You blow out a breath. “We contain both contain an alarming amount of extra-terrestrial metals?”  
  
“You’re both about to be _plowed.”_  
  
You hit your head against the side of the cube. You swear softly under your breath..  
  
“Though I suppose in this situation _I_ would be the barnyard animal, i.e the drafthorse.” he taps his chin thoughtfully with his index digit. “Or would I be the farmer? And what of the unwieldily plowing mechanism?”  
  
“You’re the farmer, the horse is your smoldering sex appeal and the plow is your dick.” you say with the tired professionalism of a psychology student. “Are you going to forcibly impregnate me or not?”  
  
“In a klik or so, I won’t have to.”  
  
You raise your eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“You sad, naive little thing. Did you _honestly_ believe I hadn’t anticipated you eschewing the main fuel storage for the one other place in the ship we keep energon?” and there’s that almost-sigh again, and that sideways grin that simultaneously makes you want to tear your ovaries out and kick him in the face. “ _Well_ before you had a chance to immerse your entire head in the cube and imbibe like common swine-”  
  
“-A half-starved sleep deprived-forced-into-the-ventilation-system-by-her-asshole-consort-who-doesn’t-respect-boundaries- _swine._ ” you spit.  
  
He continues nonplussed by your interjection “Had you reserved even a moderate amount of dignity and _slowed down_ you may have noticed a it carried a faint aftertaste.”  
  
You had in fact, in your haste, drank so fast you’d hardly had a chance to even taste it. Despite your better judgment you dip your hand back into the cube, cup a small amount of liquid, and after giving it an experimental sniff, pour some into your mouth, which you swish around slowly before turning your head and spitting it out onto the floor. Your heart sinks as you notice a sickly sweet taste and a tingling sensation on your tongue and the roof of your mouth.  
  
“Did you...” you begin in dawning horror. “Did you actually slip me a roofie you pathetic, desperate, _thirty vertical feet_ of interstellar trash?”  
  
“Ha! As if I could maintain a pressurized spike with that horrendous venting your organic frame produces while unconscious.” he flicks his talons in disgust. “I simply added a small dose of ethylene glycol, which, as you know in both cybertronian systems and theoretically on your altered one, functions as a fast acting-”  
,  
“-Aphrodisiac.” you finish for him, staring at your palms in disbelief, feeling the blood rush so fast and so suddenly to your groin you actually lose your balance and swoon, white burning behind your fluttering eyes.  
  
 He catches you, because of course he does, and nonono _no_ he’s already making his way over to the ludicrously oversized berth with you bridal style in his arms. You have a chance to punch him right in his smug fucking face but your hands betray you and shakily alight upon either side of his helm, and you’re too busy applauding his creativity to hate him right now anyways. Your legs have already roped around his waist and his breath is hot and smells like giving up, which is exactly what you plan on doing as he lays you down on the mesh sheets.  
  
_“Not giving up,_ no _”_ you tell yourself, clinging to youir last strand of dignity. _“Just not fighting back.”_ there’s no point in fighting, mass displacement or no he’s still a verifiable titan to you and comprised of metal hard enough and sharp enough to perforate titanium. You’re actively making a decision to avoid severe bodily injury. This is the logical choice, and you’re all about logic.  
  
_“...Right. I give up_.” You think bitterly. But it could be worse. You could have tied your labcoat to a stick and waved it like a white flag. You could have run-face-first-into his interface panel waving your hands and screaming. You could have begged for it. But you didn’t. And that’s a victory, however small. At least, that’s what you tell yourself to keep disappointment and shame at bay as he towers over you like the white flag waving loser bitch that you are.  
  
Though after several kliks of towering, and only towering, your shame turns to confusion.  
  
“Is there a reason-” you say after a moment’s pause. “-That you’re _not_ tearing into me like a barrel of pre-war high grade?”  
  
“There is.” he says matter of factly. “We have an unprecedented opportunity here to record the , ah, _fascinating_ side-effects of an earth-based anti-coagulant intended for vehicles on the nervous system of a cyber-evolved human female. I think I speak for both of us when suggesting that it would be a sincere miscarriage of scientific duty not to keep an open dialogue during the process, don’t you think?”  
  
_Oh no. Nononono NO._  
  
“Please tell me you don’t mean what I _know_ you mean.” you whimper.  
  
“I want you to describe the effect it’s having on you. In detail.”  
  
_Beg for it._  
  
“What the fuck do you _think_ it feels like you asshole?”  you swear, fighting to urge to spit in his face.” I want you to frag me. “  
  
“Is that all?”  
  
“I want you to frag me _hard.”_  
  
“Oh for Primus's sake, use _description,_ human!”  he snarls, face inches away from yours. “I swear I will walk straight away from this berth without so much as touching you if you don’t tell me what you want me to do. _Verbatim!”_  
  
“I...”  you begin, feeling coherent thought spill out of you, though that may very well have been due to the alien aphrodisiac coursing through your veins. “ -I...”  
  
“I'm waiting. “  
  
You inhale sharply.  
  
“I want you to pin me to the berth kicking and screaming. I want you to scratch and bite me until I _bleed_. I want you to tease me within inches of overload and then make me beg to choke on your spike. I want you to frag me until I'm _unconscious_. I want you to wreck me like the pathetic mouse I am. Are you happy?! “  
  
He remains silent for a moment, optical ridge raised, lewd smile woven into metal lips, before he bursts into laughter.  
  
“Not good enough? I told you everything.”  you spit, thinly veiled fury hanging in your voice. “What do you _want_ from me? “  
  
“Oh, it was more than sufficient.”  he sneers, drawing a talon along the underside of your chin. “And therein lies the beauty of the situation. There _was_ no aphrodisiac. “  
  
Were you capable of it, you would have punched the smile right off his perfect fucking face. “You... you...”  you start, still shaking, though you're no longer sure if it s from rage or unbridled lust. “You slimy, pit-slagged, lying, aft-backwards sonovabitch- “  
  
“I'll tell you what. If you can look me straight in the optics and tell me no , I'll stop.”  he purrs, secure in the knowledge you re going to fail spectacularly at this simple task. “Just say the word, that is, if you can. “  
  
It's then, as you look into those smoldering blood red eyes, you find yourself wondering how exactly someone like Starscream exists. Someone who had managed to not only ignore every metal fiber of his being screeching protest at not taking a female during a heat cycle, but stay sane enough, conniving enough to manipulate them into falling at his feet.  
  
He had overridden aeons worth of genetic coding, all in the interest of protecting his ego.  
  
He s nothing if not prideful.  You think, calmly aware of your body's betrayal as your blood drains away from your brain to more urgent areas of interest, and you bid your last remaining shred of logic farewell. But I'd be lying if I said that doesn't turn me on.  And unlike Starscream, you had never been very good at lying.  
  
But you, at least, are willing to admit it. You've been beaten. You've lost this stupid, hellish game of hide and seek and are fully prepared to snap the collar back around your own neck and hand him the leash.  
  
“Fuck you.”  you finally manage to choke out between breathes, glaring at him with all the impressiveness of a cornered mouse.  
  
“I'm sorry? What was that?”  he asks, manic glint in his smirk. “Speak up. “  
  
“I said _fuck you!”_  
  
 “If you insist.”  
  
You decide you don’t want to look at his stupid face anymore. So you throw your arms around his neck, force his helm down to yours, close your eyes and kiss him as hard as you can.  
  
Your move is almost as stupid as his face, because you smack your forehead into his and with your eyes closed you hit your cheekbone against his chin so hard it bruises but at least he shut up . So you fumble blindly until your lips find his and you don’t let go.  
  
He’s too surprised to laugh, optics wide, servos fumbling for purchase on the sheets beneath your head. A three or so second pause is all it takes him to find his place and kiss back, though it’s a controlled, poised affair and not at all in character considering the displays from earlier. You can’t shake the feeling that something’s off, but you also can’t bring yourself to do anything other than stay the course and grind against his frame as hard as you can.  
  
That is, until  he swats your hand away from his interface panel.  
  
“Not yet.”  
  
You look at him, then at his interface panel. Then back at him. Then back at his interface panel, before deciding to ignore whatever bullshit game he’s playing and making another grab for his panel, which he thwarts by _wrapping his servo around your throat._  
  
“What did I just say?”  
  
“....Honestly....don’t....care.”  you croak, still making desperate-half-grabs at this groin.  
  
“Such insubordination.” he tuts. “Between all the trouble you’ve put me through the past few cycles, the indignity I’ve suffered chasing you through my own home like a rodent and now disobeying a direct order-”He smirks. “I think some disciplinary action is in order.”  
  
He releases you. You cough, you sputter, you rub your throat and watering eyes that watch in disbelief as he reclines against the head of the berth and extends his leg, the tip of his stiletto coming to rest against your bottom lip, pressing your head back far enough that you can barely see the crimson glow of his narrowed optics over the bridge of your nose.  
  
“I want you-” he begins, smile upon his face borderline Cheshire in proportion. “-To clean my peds. With your _glossa.”_  
  
You wish you could say no.. You would give your PHD for the mental fortitude and self respect to throw up your hands and walk away. But you don’t. You’re hyper ventilating, your pupils are dilating, and you’re pretty sure you’re wet enough to jump start monsoon season in the Mojave desert.  
  
_“I thought you’d never ask...”_  
  
You kiss the top of his peds, palming his heels as you draw your tongue along the underside of metal calves. You’d had his gorgeous metal legs coiled around your head while you deepthroated his spike more times than you could count but somehow this particular course of events had escaped your jungle gym enumeration of bedroom play until now. Why exactly this is, you’re not certain. Judging by the amount that he’s shaking, it could be that his legs are actually erogenous zones, and Starscream had never been a very forthcoming lover. Probably because he equates soft spots with weakness and weaknesses aren’t something he can’t even admit to himself that he has.  
  
Heck, you’re shaking too. Though you’re not exactly sure why, since you’re not nervous, the heat between your legs is growing but not desperate And it’s accompanied by a feeling you don’t quite recognize welling up inside you, ebbing and flowing and needle sharp when he tells you to _“Look at me while you work, slag it!”_ and-oh.  
  
You recognize that feeling now.  
  
It’s _rage._  
  
It seems there is, in fact, a finite amount of humiliation you can suffer before you reach your breaking point, and you’ve just reached it.  
  
“No.”  
  
He opens his mouth, but before he can protest you grab his heels, yank his entire frame forward, use your newly acquired berserker strength to throw him down on the berth and pin him down by the wings with your knees.  
  
  
“Do you have any idea- “ you start, seething, “- Do you have any _idea_ what it's like playing hide and seek the one time I don't have to beg on my hands and knees? “  
  
  
He’s frozen, painfully elegant even in his helplessness. You can count on one hand with one fucking finger how many times you’ve had him splayed out beneath you like this, like a preserved butterfly. It’s uncomfortable. It looks and feels wrong but you’re too busy riding on the adrenaline high to address the frightening undertones his complacency unearths.  
  
“Do you have any idea what that _does_ to me? What you do to me? What it's like living with you waltzing around like a goddamn runway model on those fucking legs that should be _illegal_ on a mech?”  you spit. “I live in a constant state of sexually aggravated hell, all because I‘m too small to tie you down to the berth and fuck you into the next galaxy like the fucking _tease_ you are.”  You’re  pretty much foaming at the mouth at this point, grinding against his interface panel so hard it hurts as he stares up at you in glossy-eyed bewilderment, laying like a rag doll as you hover above him like a jackal, watching in manic fascination as the last bit of fight fades from his eyes.  
  
“What...do you want from me?” he asks weakly.  
  
“Ask me” you growl into his audial receptor. “ _Ask_ me to interface with you.”  
  
Starscream honestly looks like he may have just blown a fuse, and stutters several times before forming a complete sentence.  
  
“I... I... ah.... want you to.... ah, interface with me?”  
  
“Nicely. “  
  
“Please?”  
  
“Please _what?! “_  
  
“Please interface with me? “  
  
“Good boy.” you grin. “But we’re not done yet. Tell me _why.”_  
  
He grunts, probably from the pins and needles sensation of having his wings pinned down but also due to his half pressurized spike straining against it’s confinement. You’re not sure exactly what kind of tourture having a constant erection for four going on five days straight is but if it’s anything like the chronic bluebean you’d been made to suffer for the past eight years you’d almost feel sorry for him.  
Almost.  
  
“I want you.” he wheezes finally. “I want you so badly.”  
  
“Keep going.”  
  
“I need you to want _me.”_   he breathes. “ _Tell_ me what I need to do to make that happen. “  
  
An offer. Finally, he’s leveling with you. You take a moment, running the plethora of possibilities you’d long dreamed of but never imagined you’d have the opportunity to try through your mind.  
  
“Eat me out.”  
  
He blinks.  
  
“Come again?”  
  
“Did I fragging _stutter?”_ you ask. “I want you to burry your face in my organic valve and don’t you dare stop ‘till I say you can.”  
  
“May I humbly suggest that you move your knees from my wings so I may better access-”  
  
“I wasn’t born yesterday _my lord_.”  you narrow your eyes “You can reach it fine from here.”  
  
It doesn’t hit you at first, you’re still reeling from the disbelief that this is actually happening, but as you feel the gentle sting of cold metal lips on your pussy and the stretch as his glossa, his impossibly long, and dexterous glossa slip inside you the reality that _Starscream is going down on you sets in_. You bite your lip to stop yourself from crying out, because you can see his optics fucking smoldering and narrowed at you from between your thighs and you have to cover your eyes, have to put your hands over your face because he’s too _right there._  
  
“Don’t you dare cover your face.” he growls during a momentary pause, and oh you wish you still had the nerve to reprimand him for speaking out of turn, but it’s taking all of your willpower just to keep yourself upright as is. “I want you to _look_ at me.”  
  
 For once he’s actually trembling under you. Though it's less in sweet, passionate surrender and more in barely contained rage. And you know the second you shift your weight off his wings it’s over. You'll be bottom bitch again and right back to fetishizing your helplessness like the sad excuse for a sapient being you are.  
  
But that’s a problem for future you. One you re not going to waste time worrying about, because present you has a furious, high-octane sex god by the wings and by god you re not going to let go until he starts _singing._  
  
Though that might be sooner than you’d like, with overload on the near horizon, you’re grinding your hips against him as hard as you can while still maintaining your balance, wishing there was some way you could at least reach his spike from here, have some hold on him once you break and inevitably lose control. But it’s a lost cause, and as orgasm tears through you, and your left knee slips from his wing your short-lived revolution comes to an end. You release the reigns, fall backwards out of the saddle and brace yourself for the trampling that’s sure to follow.  
  
 “Do _you_ have any idea” he seethes into your ear, having taken the split second lapse to pin you back down. “What it’s like trying to keep my composure during a heat cycle? Do you know what it’s like being able to SMELL you? have you INCHES away from me, being able to HEAR you through the walls, see you RUINING yourself to pictures of my spike and NOT being able to so much as _touch you?!”_  
  
His interface panel snaps open so fast his fully pressurized spike nearly punches you in the eye.  
  
“What the fuck.” you say, having just barely avoided impact by craning your neck out of the way.  
  
“I have half a mind to resume my default height and split you in _half_.” he hisses. “Be grateful you’re worth far more to me in one piece.”  
  
The thought of being used like a warm cocksleeve just turns you on more. You’re fucked in the head and there’s nowhere left to go so you don’t try to scrape together enough shame to feel bad about yourself. You just tremble beneath him in anticipation like the salivating bitch in heat you are.  
  
And when at long last he impales you, his hips hits your so hard and so fast it sends shockwaves throughout your body, it takes everything you’ve got to stop yourself from _howling._  
  
He's digging his talons so hard into your thighs they’re bleeding, definitely _bleeding_ and your clawing and biting at his neck cables so hard he’s emitting sparks. There’s a storm breaking between the both of you, tempestuous and savage.  It’s equal parts sex and equal parts mauling and every time it threatens to tip too far over into the other side the scales right themselves. There’s a caress for every lesion, kisses between the biting and a muffled “ _beautiful”_ or _“Oh Primus please.”_ for every drop of blood spilt. He could be trying to kill you as easily as he’s trying to make you overload before he does and you can only hope he doesn’t lose sight of his goal.  
  
He’s probably not trying to kill you, but you don’t want to give him that chance, and you, perhaps unwisely, in your momentary lapse into fear, reach up and pinch the base of his wings.  
  
He shrieks. He calls out your name in a flurry of static and his native language. And he overloads. _Hard._  
  
You’re estatic, at first, because clearly this was still a competition and you’ve won, but it’s come at the cost of your own overload but before you even have time to asses that you are, in fact, an idiot, Starscream begins laughing.  
  
“I pity you (y/n), I really do. “  
  
you raise your eyebrow. “Why?”  
  
“Because you've _clearly_ never dealt with a seeker in heat.” he says, withdrawing his still _completely erect spike_ from you momentarily to force you into a face-down-ass up position before him.  
  
"And as you very well know- “ he pauses as he pushes your head into the berth.  
  
“I-”  he bites down on your shoulder so hard it bleeds.  
  
“-Have never been known- “  
  
He forces his spike back inside your ravaged pussy so hard the air is forced out of your lungs.  
  
“-For being _gentle.”_  
  
And proceeds to fuck your brains out a second time.  
  
It hurts. It’s not like you hadn’t expected it to, but damnit it _hurts_ and a desperate plea to “slow down!” slips out of your mouth before you can reprimand yourself for begging for mercy.  
  
“No.” he says, and it’s that deep, guttural, feral kind of warning snarl you’d yet to grow used to, the kind he’d loosed before tearing through titanium to get to you.  
  
_“Please!”_  
  
“You are in _no position_ to be making demands!”  
  
“You’re gonna _break_ something!” you manage to choke out.  
  
“All the better to keep you in your place, since you _clearly_ don’t know it.” He snarls. “You’re not leaving this berth until you’re sparked, do you hear me?!”  
  
Maybe it’s the looks in his optics, the predatory, vulture-esc gleam, maybe it’s because you can actually see the bulge his spike makes against your lower belly but you’ve slipped past the pain threshold and begin the climb to blind ecstasy as he tears into your body like carrion.  
  
“Yes.” you gasp. “Oh fuck me _yes_!”  
  
_“Say it!”_  
  
“I’m not leaving this berth till I’m sparked!”  
  
“You are _proud_ to carry my sparklings!”  
  
“I...ah...I’m proud to carry your sparklings!”  
  
“You WILL refer to me from this day henceforth as “Lord” or “Master” or “My liege” or “Sire”. You are my _slut,_ you are my _broodmare!”_  
  
“I...uh....all of that stuff yes!”  
  
“Scream for me. Tell me that you're _mine.“_  
  
And you’re done. You’re finished. You’re _gone._ You can only scream into the berth and ball the sheets into your fists as overload takes you. Simultaneously. He’s screaming too, trilling, sympohnic and bridging five different octaves. Glass shatters somewhere but you can’t hear it over the ringing and your own heartbeat roaring in your ears. He buries his face in your neck, cries almost melodic as he breaks within you.  
  
You remain like this for a beat, interlocked, before he allows himself to fall to the side taking you with him, spike still hilted inside you. You’re not completely facing him, but you can see his face now, placated, exhausted, and still so criminally handsome you have to tear your eyes away as though you’ve been staring at the sun.  
  
He’s a canopy of slate gray and silver covering you, a marionette of living machinery. Robotic doesn’t even begin to describe him, robotic is a mistake because he is no golem, no broad-shouldered mechanism but a metal-winged death-becomes-him angel. And how befitting it is, that through odds low enough to suggest divine intervention you’d eschewed natural law and reproduced with him.  
  
And he’s yours. And you’re his and were you a better person, able to rise above the constant power struggle between you two, you may have given in to the post-coital ecstasy and allowed yourself to weep with joy at this revelation. But that would suggest weakness. So you turn your head away, and convince yourself it’s sweat burning your eyes and streaming down you face.  
  
“Are you still conscious?” he asks after his venting evens out.  
  
You still haven’t caught your breath, still haven’t recovered from your hard hitting post orgasmic emotional rollercoaster and have to swallow the lump in your throat before answering.  
  
“Barely.”  
  
“Good. Because we’re going again in fifteen minutes.”  
  
You share a comfortable silence while he, to your astonishment,  begins lazily kneading into your back.  His talons aren’t cold, but they’re cool enough to leave goosebumps. Even relaxed, they’re sharp enough to draw razor thin white lines across your skin, serving as yet another reminder that he is, in fact, a sentient-high-velocity death machine, no matter how sated or half conscious he may be. The low whine of his cooling fans at their lowest setting sounds almost like purring, creating the curious sensation of laying beneath a giant metal cat. You’re so done with euphemisms, but at least these are less crass and more befitting of the afterglow.  
  
“Are we...are we cuddling?” you ask finally in bewilderment.”  
  
“We are.”  he hums, amused.  
  
“You...you don’t do cuddling. _We_ don’t do cuddling.”  
  
“It reduces stress levels and aides in the production of oxycotin, which, if you have any left circulating through your system, would increase the odds of sparking.”  
  
 “That sounds... logical.”  you say, channeling your inner Shockwave.”    
  
“Because it is.”  
  
 “But I also can t dismiss the possibility that you re doing it because you _like_ it.”  
  
 He scoffs, but with his helm buried in the back of your neck it sounds more like a muffled agreement.  
  
“Can I ask what exactly brought this on?”  
  
“You mean aside from aeons worth of sexual evolution and the hormones?” You know he’s rolling his optics. You huff and continue anyways.  
  
“Yes. Aside from that.” you repeat flatly. “You got it into your processor to spawn with me before you even detected the heat cycle. I want to know why.”  
  
A moment passes. Then another, and the silence toes the line from thoughtful to awkward. You assume he considers your question too ridiculous to dignify with an answer, and just as you’ve given up hope of a response-  
  
“Forty two.”  
  
You open your mouth and tilt your head in disbelief.  
  
“Is that...did you just make a Hitchhiker's reference?”  
  
“If you're referring to more of that psuedo scientific bullscrap that passes for human entertainment then no.”  
  
“Not even if it makes you genre savvy?”  
  
“Were I attempting to impress anyone in that respect I would've quoted something far less self-aware, I assure you.” he huffs, rolling his optics. “What I was trying to say before your attempt to pull this conversation in a painfully meta direction is that there's forty two seekers left.”  
  
 “In the galaxy?”  
  
 “In _existence.”_  
  
You inhale so sharply you choke, and have to cover your hand with your mouth to keep from sputtering.  
  
“And that's with a generous allowance to include flight frames with less than twenty five percent seeker C.N.A.  And only three of them are femmes.”  He punctuates his sentence with a long, exaggerated sigh. “Including Blackbird.”  
  
“Tell me you’re not serious.”  
  
“I am deadly serious.” he retorts. And if you must  know exactly what prompted this sojourn, it was the remark you made immediately before it began.”  
  
You bite your lip in thought, trying to remember. “The one about reciting the alphabet backwards while eating Shockwave’s-”  
  
“The ONE about the protoforms.” He cuts you off. “You know, “Your spark’s in the right place, but we can’t be nitpicking at this stuff while your species hovers at the edge of extinction”.” he says in a terrible mock version of your voice while marking air quotes.  
  
You blink. “Are you...are you telling me something I said actually got through your thick helm?”  
  
“I’m _telling_ you that what you said reminds me of something a colleague of mine told me almost verbatim before my lab was seized.” he huffs. “I didn’t agree with him them and I don’t agree with you now, but it brings an...incredibly pressing issue to light.”  
  
You feel your heart sink, and don’t interrupted him as he sighs heavily and continues.  
  
“I’m sure that you’ve noticed by now that flight frame genetics, particularly that of seekers, are largely recessive, and that when hybrids with flight frames DO occur, they’re predisposed towards aliments inherited from the grounder parent?”  
  
“So...the genetic screening function on the protoforms-”  
  
“Was to eliminate afflictions and disorders that are mild inconveniences to most grounders, but are devastating to seekers. Brittle plating may pose a slim risk to those traveling at moderate speed over land. But it  can render even a short, low atmosphere flight _fatal. ”_  
  
You let out a low whistle. “So that’s why you were so anal retentive about altering the allowances.”  
  
 “We were a glorious, highly aesthetic, highly _specialized_ race.” he sighs. “We adapted exceedingly well to our surroundings....and not much else.”  
  
_“Evolutionary_ maladaption _”_ you think, but don’t say.  “What’s this past tense crap? Don’t you go all self-fulfilling prophecy on me.” you say boldly, keeping what you both know about population viability and unrealistic expectations safely under your tongue.  
  
“It’s not  just seekers falling prey to the ravages of time, but our culture as well. There’s almost no native vosian speakers left, our city was completely _obliterated_ by the war, and even before that our entire way of life lay on the verge of collapse due to mass emigration.”  
  
You, admittedly, had devoted very little time to researching cybertrionian culture, and even less to the culture of individual regions, city states and races, considering it fell squarely outside the paradigm of your mad scientist agenda. But it sounds like there’s a story here you probably can’t go the rest of your life without listening to at least once, and considering it involves the mech circumstance ordained you spend the rest of your life with, you should probably at least make an effort to listen.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“The emigration was due to a well-intentioned but hamfisted attempt to repair our image after a...” he clears his throat nervously. “-a regime.”  
  
You raise your eyebrows. “Please tell me this isn’t some state-enforced eugenics thing.”  
  
“As we’ve just established, seeker genetics are recessive. Our second to last Winglord capitalized on this by spreading fear that if we didn’t keep our population strictly homogenous then surely we’d be bred out of existence. Grounders, other flight frames and shuttles were forcibly exiled. A one drop rule was enacted, and even seekers who could not trace their lineage beyond a shadow of a doubt were thrown out.”  
  
You pinch the bridge of your nose, swearing softly. “This is _exactly_ some state-enforced eugenics thing.”  
  
“We have a rich and beautiful history, that existed and grew for aeons before the regime, and has _nothing to do with it._ And it’s in even more danger of being completely erased then the rest of cybertronian civilization because there’s so few of us left!”  
  
“And because you guys were narcessistic dicks.”  
  
“We were narcissistic dick _adjacent!_ ” he spits back. Millions of us had NOTHING to do with it. And what of our culture that existed thousands of years before that?  am I to sit here complacent while it accumulates dusts and  watch aeons worth of history crumble under the weight of a recent mistake?”  
  
You open your mouth to argue, but considering  your line of work, namely the “mad scientist” gambit, you realize you have precious little room to be commenting on ethics in pretty much any capacity. You shut your mouth and opt to glower instead while Starscream rattles on.  
  
“The winglord, his vision never quite made it to fruition, the backlash was enormous from the start and he was assassinated before Vos was ever effectively...cleansed.” he continues cautiously. “But the damage to our reputation was already done. We were known as violent, arrogant, xenophobic narcissists the entire planet over.”  
  
“Gee, I can’t imagine _why.”_  
  
He growls softly in frustration, but lets your sarcasm slide by unaddressed. “There was an effort to improve our image, spearheaded by my sire of all mechs.  Vos was a heavily artistic society, we preferred form over functionality, there was little to offer in terms of trade. But our architecture-” he almost looks wistful here for a moment, gazing into thin air with an appreciative intensity you’re sorely jealous had never been spared for you. _Fuck_ you _air._ “It was unparalleled, (y/n),  nowhere else on Cybertron even came _close_ to matching our magnificence. It made the crystal city looks like a sparkling’s block castle.”  
  
“You’re getting off topic.”  
  
“I’m _worldbuilding_ you self-aware twat.” he sneers “Irregardless, the campaign was actually working, and we were slowly becoming recognized as an art capital. Since we had little raw material, we traded in highly skilled, specialized bot-power, and we  left in droves for indeterminate periods of time on contracts to work in other regions. Everyone wanted Vosian art in their quarters, musicians in their halls, architects on their planning committees-”  
  
“And the population of Vos itself fell.”  
  
He sighs. “We spread ourselves very, very thin. By the time my sire acknowledged the...unintended consequences of his actions I had already begun my work in the dark energon research facility. He begged me to come back, and I told him I would, but I then became encumbered by other...ah, more lucrative options at the time.”  
  
“You mean playing “follow-and-then-kill-the-leader after Megatron blew up your lab?”  
  
“Perhaps for once in your miserable life you could lend me a sympathetic audial receptor instead of flinging my own trespasses back in my face?” he spits venomously. “I’m trying to express deep regret!”  
  
“Regret for...what, specifically?” you venture. “Your laundry list has a laundry list.”  
  
“For not _trying harder!_ ” he snaps so loudly you recoil. “I promised Skyfire I’d work with the protoforms until I found a solution. I promised my sire I would return to Vos someday, I promised Thundercracker I’d rebuild it as he _offlined in my arms_ , and I’ve done _none of it!_ ” He stares in disgust at his shaking servos before clenching them into fists. “I have worked  _millennia_ for this, and what do I have to show for my efforts?”  
  
Your mouth hangs open, firstly because you weren’t even sure “regret” was a word in Starscream’s vocabulary until now, secondly because he’d never mentioned his family or his trine other than acknowledging they existed at all, and lastly because if your ears are working correctly he actually has noble reasons behind his all consuming drive for success _what the fuck._  
  
“Blackbird was an accident, and yet she’s the closest I’ve ever come to upholding _any_ of those vows.” he says. “So forgive me for thinking it might not be a terrible idea to try and replicate our accomplishment.  But I digress. Go ahead and tell me I’m a sentimental _fool_ for wanting to save my race when the fate of our entire species hangs in the balance.”  
  
The you ten, maybe even five minutes ago would have. She’d have lambasted him for dragging something this petty and inconsequential into your combined life’s work. But present you is biting her lips so hard it’s bleeding to keep herself from tearing up.  
  
“I can’t.”  
  
He raises an optical ridge. “Can’t what?”  
  
“I can’t tell you it’s wrong. I can t exactly explain why but I know it's not. There s nothing wrong with trying to preserve your people or your culture. “ You want to keep going, to tell him that if he’d just been honest from the get-go you would've turned to a pile of sympathetic, ovulating goo and maybe you could've avoided your adrenaline fueled nightmarish game of hide and seek and also not have wasted 3000 USD. But admitting that would be tipping the power scales in his favor, and as of right now they’ve never been more even.  
  
“You are...sympathetic towards my plight?” he asks in flat disbelief.  
  
“Starscream if I were the kind of person to hold an entire race accountable for the actions of a few I would've blown up the Nemisis 10 minutes after meeting you.” you say flatly.  “Aeons worth of history is worth saving, no matter what kind of history it is.  And I’d be a pretty shitty parent if I didn’t at least try to preserve something for Blackbird to learn about.”  
  
He tilts his helm at you, mouth slightly ajar, perhaps not quite yet willing to come to terms with your, well, willingness. “And what of your species? Have you no desire to imprint your customs upon her?”  
  
“Look, she’s seven and her hobbies include playing god and harassing underpaid actors in mascot costumes. She’s probably more human than I am.” you sigh. “There’s billions of humans. There’s only hundreds of cybertronians and there’s less than fifty of you guys. I’m not exactly gonna be pissed if she doesn’t take up knitting or starts a stamp collection.”  
  
“She...she could be exposed to both.” he starts somewhat weakly.  
  
“I’d honestly rather she not be exposed to stamp collecting at all.” half serious, half just trying to lighten the mood because seeing Starscream in non-aggressive emotional meltdown mode is something you honestly have no idea how to handle.  
  
“I simply...do not want to see our daughter grow up without ever learning her native language, or ever seeing her home.” He croaks, voice unsteady in the effort to keep it from breaking. “I don't...I don't want to live to see the last of my people die out. I don’t want Blackbird to be the last seeker ever _born.”_  
  
He exhales sharply, and it’s so, so preciously close to a sob, and if you didn’t know better, that’s exactly what you’d call it. But you do know better, and that’s how you maintain your rock-steady resolve and cool facade as you take his servos and hold them as tightly as your tiny organic hands can.”  
  
“She won’t be.”  
  
His optics widen. He gives you that same split-second look of vulnerability you’re so used to. You expect him to recoil and mask it, play it off with a offhanded insult or a wave of his servo like he normally does.  
  
Except he doesn't.  
  
After a painfully long pause, he reaches out, and he embraces you, curling his entire frame around you body, pressing your head into the crook beneath his throat,  and  buries his own face in your hair, murmuring softly.  
  
“That pathetic, soft, organic brain of yours may be having a far greater effect on me than I'd care to admit.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Unnecessary rising of efficiency](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7838596) by [Vivalavidapasta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivalavidapasta/pseuds/Vivalavidapasta)




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